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A HISTORY OF QUAKER GOVERNMENT IN PENNSYLVANIA 


Vorume II: 


The Quakers in the Revolution. 


Waberford Ldition 


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WMaverford Ldition 


A 
History of Quaker Government 


in Pennsylvania 


VoLumeE II: 


The Quakers in the Revolution 


By Isaac Suarpcess, LL.D. 
President of Haverford College 


“For my country I eyed the Lord in the obtaining of it, and more 
was I drawn inward to look to him and to owe it to his hand and power, 
than to any other way. I have so obtained it and desire that I may 
not be unworthy of his love and do that which may answer his kind 
providence and serve his truth and people; that an example may be set 
up to the nations; there may be room there though not here for such a 
holy experiment.’ Wir11am Penn. 


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PREFACE. 


THE purpose of this monograph is neither to 
’ defend nor to condemn the position taken by the 
Friends of Pennsylvania during the Revolution- 
ary War; but as accurately as possible, in the 
light of contemporary writings found in the 
records of meetings, private letters and public 
documents, to state that position fairly. 

It is not to be greatly wondered at that they 
have been misunderstood. They were friends of 
liberty, but opposed to war ; desirous of main- 
taining their civil rights, but by other means than 
illegality and revolution, and unwilling to afford 
aid to the British ; divided in their sympathies, 
but largely united in the stand that they could 
take no part in the strife of the day. Their 
attitude has thus been variously stated as one 
side or the other has been exclusively seen. 

The question was at the time an important 
one. Up to this date they had been the most 
potent single political influence in the province, 
whose unequaled prosperity was largely due to 
the institutions and principles of their first great 


leader, William Penn, and their own administra- 
tion of affairs. It was felt by friend and foe 
alike that the attempt to draw unwilling Penn- 
sylvania into the revolutionary movement would 
largely depend on the direction and extent of their 
influence. Unquestionably they, like most con- 
servative and order-loving Philadelphians, opposed 
it in its early stages. 

Whether this opposition would have been suc- 
cessful had Pennsylvania been left to itself is an ~ 
open question, but when war and revolution 
became inevitable and their charter was cast aside, 
they issued a declaration of neutrality. They 
were neither Tories nor revolutionists. They did 
not seek protection within British lines nor join 
the American forces. 

Isaac SHARPLESS. 


Haverford College, 
1899. 


CONTENTS OF VOLUME II. 


PREFACE TO THE SECOND VOLUME, 


LisT OF ILLUSTRATIONS, 


CHAPTER 


I.—INTRODUCTORY, 
II.—THE FRIENDLY ASSOCIATION, 
III.—THE Paxton Rior, 
IV.—THE CONTEST WITH THE PROPRIETORS, 
V.—PREPARING FOR THE REVOLUTION, 
VI.—THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REVOLUTION, 
VII.—THE VIRGINIA EXILEs, 
VIII.—QUAKER SUFFERING, 
IX.—THE FREE QUAKERS, . 
X.—FRIENDS AND SLAVERY, 


XI.— FRIENDS WHO HAVE BEEN PROMINENT 
PupBLic LIFE SINCE THE REVOLUTION, 


INDEX, 


IN 


294 


ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME II. 


BarRcLay HALL, HAVERFORD COLLEGE, 


Vignette Half-Title. 
Half-tone, from a photograph, i 


‘““A SouTH-EAst PROSPECT OF THE CITY OF PHILA- 
DELPHIA,” 1718, F i ; ; Frontispiece. 


Half-tone, from a drawing ie P, F. Goist, after the 
original painting by Peter Cooper, in the Philadelphia 


Library. 
OPP. 
PAGE 
OLD MENNONITE MEETING-HOUSE, GERMANTOWN, . 3 
Half-tone, from a photograph. 
THE ORIGINAL CHRIST CHURCH, : ‘ = : 4 
Half-tone, from an old print. 
THOMAS PENN, : : : a 0 : : : 10 
Half-tone, after the original painting in possession of 
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 
JOHN PENN, GOVERNOR, . . 5 20 
Half-tone, after an etching by Albert Rosenthal 
MERION MEETING-HOUSE, . ‘ 4 5 : ; 24 
Half-tone, after an old drawing. 
“THE SOLITUDE,” ; 5 ; ; ; : 73 
Half-tone, from a araiany 
Dr. JOHN FOTHERGILL, : ; ; ; ; 2 86 
Half-tone, from an old print. 
JOHN DICKINSON, 0 : : 5 5 ; 4 95 


Half-tone, from a photogravure after the original 
painting. 


CHARLES THOMSON, ‘ : 
Half-tone, from an old engraving. 


BaNK MEETING—HOUSE, } 


CENTRE SQUARE MEETING-HOUSE, 


Line-engravings; the Bank Meeting-House from Wat- 
son’s Annals, the Centre Square Meeting-House from 
an old drawing. 


BIRMINGHAM MEEFTING—HOUSE, 
Half-tone, from a photograph. 


“A N.W. VIEW OF THE STATE HOUSE IN PHILADEL- 
PHIA, TAKEN 1778,” . : 


Half-tone, after a copperplate in the Columbian Ge 
zine. 


VALLEY MEETING—HOUSE, 
Half-tone, after an old drawing. 


JOHN ROBERTS’ MILL, 
Half-tone, from a aes 


NICHOLAS WALN, 
Half-tone, after an old engraving. 


FREE QUAKERS’ MEETING-HOUSE, 
Half-tone, from a photograph. 


GEORGE WASHINGTON’S HOUSE, 
Line-engraving, from Watson’s Annals, 


“A VIEW OF THE NEW MARKET FROM THE CORNER 
oF SHIPPEN AND SECOND ee PHILADEL- 
PHIA, 1787.” 


Half-tone, after a Scpeoae in the Columbian nies 
zine, 


OPP. 
PAGE 


105 


114 


146 


181 


193 


217 


218 


220 


235 


“We have a just sense of the value of our religious 
and civil liberties, and have ever been and are desirous 
of preserving them by all such measures as are not 
inconsistent with our Christian profession and principles, 
and though we believe it to be our duty to submit to 
the powers which in the course of Divine Providence are 
set over us, where there hath been or is any oppression or 
cause of suffering, we are engaged with Christian meek- 
ness and firmness to petition and remonstrate against it 
and to endeayor by just pascal and arguments to 
assert our rights and privileges in order to obtain relief.” 


A FRIENDS’ MINUTE OF 1775, 


The Quakers in the Rebdolution. 


CHAPTER I. 


INTRODUCTORY, 


The province of Pennsylvania, during the 
first three-quarters of a century of its existence, 
had made more rapid progress in numbers, 
wealth and internal peace and comfort than any 
other of the English colonies which lined the 
coast. At the end of this period, when our his- 
tory begins, it contained perhaps two hundred 
thousand people, of whom one-eighth were in 
the city of Philadelphia. This city was, in 
number of inhabitants and in commerce, the 
chief city of America. 

This rapid growth was due to the large immi- 
gration induced by religious liberty, peace with 
the Indians, and fertile and cheap land. Since 
1701 the political institutions were governed by 
William Penn’s last charter, with such modifi- 
cations as the English Court chose to apply, with 
or without regard to previous promises. 

The government included a lieutenant-gov- 
ernor (appointed by the Penns, who themselves 


2 Quakers in the Revolution. 


thus nominally held the post of Governor), who 
surrounded himself with a council of advisers. 
He had an unlimited veto over legislation, which 
he did not hesitate to exercise. The Assembly, 
which originated all laws, was a popularly-elected 
body. Every freeman owning fifty acres of 
land, or property worth fifty pounds, was en- 
titled to vote. The judges were appointed by 
the Governor, and the other provincial officers 
were also appointed by him from twice the 
number of eligibles elected by the people. 

Of religious bodies the Province possessed the 
greatest variety to be found in any part of the 
British possessions. The Friends, for perhaps 
twenty years after 1682, had a numerical 
ascendancy, which, by the increase of the other 
elements of the population, became a continu- 
ally-decreasing minority. There may have been 
forty thousand in 1760. 

The Germans began to come in immediately 
after the settlement of the Province. William 
Penn made particular efforts, through Benja- 
min Furly and others, to interest the dwellers 
along the Rhine holding sympathetic religious 
views with his own, and burdened with military 
exactions, in his new state. The stream once 
started, during the first half of the eighteenth 


oe 8 


MEETING-HOUSE, GERMANTOWN. 


4 


4 


OLD MENNONITE 


BUILT IN 1770. 


Introductory. 3 


century they came in ever-increasing numbers. 
James Logan became alarmed. In 1717 he 
writes: “We have great numbers of Palatines 
poured in upon us, without any recommendation 
or notice, which gives the country some uneasi- 
ness, for foreigners do not so well among us as 
our own people.” Still their numbers grew. 
Pennsylvania was their objective point, and 
they could not be prevailed upon to stop in New 
York. In one year (1749) as many as twelve 
thousand came to Philadelphia. They quickly 
pressed on into the country, leaving the city and 
its neighborhood undisturbed. 

Of the Germans many were Mennonites, 
Dunkards and Schwenkfelders, who were at one 
with the Friends on the subjects of war and 
oaths, and simplicity of living and dress. Being 
quiet, unambitious farmers, they were con- 
tent to allow the Quakers to govern them, and 
lived for two generations without material 
change in their habits of life or thought. 

The Moravians came about 1740, and made 
Bethlehem the garden-spot of the Province. 
They lived almost an ideal life, devoted to right- 
eousness and peace and the christianization of 
the Indians, in which last they were more suc- 
cessful than all other sects combined. 


4 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The German Reformed and the Lutherans, — 
in numbers far exceeding any other German 
sects, came in during the years preceding the 
Revolution. Though to the Philadelphians they 
appeared, as they left their crowded boats in the 
Delaware River, to be boorish, uncleanly and 
uneducated, many of them were religious men 
of strong convictions and considerable learning. 
They added to the province an element of 
honesty, industry and conservatism, which, as a 
state, it has not lost. 

The Church of England established itself in 
the very early days of the province, and main- 
tained a steady growth, especially in the city of 
Philadelphia. Towards revolutionary times its 
members shared with Friends the commercial 
and social supremacy of the province. 

The Presbyterians also became numerous in 
the city. Moreover, they were scattered widely 
through the country districts, and their energy 
resulted in many proselytes. Cotemporaneous 
with the German immigration there was another 
of almost equal proportions from the north of 
Treland, made up exclusively of Presbyterians. 
Some of these were well educated, and became 
the school teachers of the province. The most, 
however, were untaught, uncouth people, of rest- 


a 
fGlh. 


Free Chine st Chi 


THE ORIGINAL CHRIST CHURCH. 


Built on the site of the present edifice, Second Street above Market, in 1695. 


Introductory. 5 


less vigor, who sought the frontiers, making a 
fringe outside the German line. By their scorn 
of conciliation they rather invited Indian at- 
tacks, which no scruples prevented them from 
returning. Politically they were in the oppo- 
sition through all the colonial days, but had their 
ascendancy during and after the Revolutionary 
war, which they largely supplied with soldiers, 
generals and statesmen. 

Every Protestant Christian sect was politically 
the equal of every other. Catholics, Jews and 
Socinians could not hold office, but their num- 
bers were small, and while provincial parties 
were often separated rather sharply by denomi- 
national boundaries, no tests gave one organiza- 
tion any advantage over the others. What was 
gained was by legitimate influence and honest 
public service. 

The Friends had given up their control of the 
Pennsylvania Assembly in 1756. The war which 
the Governor and Council had declared against 
the Delaware Indians seemed to make it imprac- 
ticable for uncompromising peace men to re- 
main longer in the government. Their cautious 
brethren, whose influence was supreme in Phila- 
delphia Yearly Meeting, urged them to sacrifice 
place to principle. Their co-religionists in Eng- 


6 Quakers in the Revolution. 


land had asked the Ministry not to drive them 
out by the imposition of an oath, and had sent 
over a deputation to use personal influence with 
all legislators who had a membership among 
Friends to resign or refuse reélection. 

This seemed the only way to get them out. 
Though bitterly attacked for their unwillingness 
to provide military provisions, an attack hardly 
justified in late years by their record, they were 
strong in the confidence of the voters. Even in 
the disastrous times immediately following the 
defeat of Braddock, twenty-eight of the thirty- 
six Assemblymen elected were Friends, and 
there seemed to be no abatement of their popu- 
lar strength. Though they were by this time 
influential by virtue of numbers and of commer- 
cial and social standing, they were yet a consid- 
erable minority of the total population. 

The German bodies, who sympathized with 
their ethical views and appreciated their eco- 
nomical administration of the finances of the 
Province, and their successful defence of popu- 
lar rights against proprietary pretensions, voted 
for them almost to a man.¢ There could be seen 
not infrequently the spectacle of a community 
of Germans solidly voting for one of a handful 
of Quakers in their midst.) 


Introductory. 7 


The resignation of ten of the Quaker mem- 
bers of the Assembly in 1756, and the refusal of 
others to accept a reélection, reduced the mem- 
bership to a small number. Yet for years it 
required the greatest efforts of the meetings, 
now thoroughly committed to a policy of non- 
participation in the exciting politics of the 
times, to keep out of civil office their less loyal 
members. There was always a Friendly minor- 
ity up to the Revolutionary War,—a minority 
which, about 1763-4, amounted to nearly one- 
half of the Assembly; but in the main the 
church organization was effective. The specta- 
cle of Quakers in the Assembly levying war 
taxes which Quakers outside of the Assembly 
refused to pay, was so unedifying that many, 
for the sake of harmony, refused to accept seats. 

But while Quakers were thus in the minority, 
and the Yearly Meeting felt its skirts clear of re- 
sponsibility for the actions of the Assembly, the 
“Quaker Party ” was in full control, and the 
policy was shaped on the same lines as prior to 
1756. The war taxes were levied perhaps a 
little more openly, but the struggle went on as 
resolutely as ever against the right of the Pro- 
prietors to interfere in the matter of raising 
money, against their right to bind the Governor 


8 Quakers in the Revolution. 


by secret instructions, and against their right to 
have their lands relieved from bearing a share 
of the public burdens. 

The instincts developed in the ruling sect by 
three-quarters of a century of governmental 
control could not be suddenly rooted out. (Penn- 
sylvania was the glory of Quakerism») It was 
hard to yield to the force of adversé cireum- 
stances, but in their minds the vitality of the 
principle of peace was at stake, and after throes 
of internal conflict, the uncompromising spirit 
of ancient Quakerism triumphed even over the 
desire to perpetuate the “experiment,” now no 
longer “holy,” of the successors of William 
Penn. 

The most of them, however, did not refuse to 
vote. It seems impossible to ascertain just what 
party devices existed for the purposes of nomi- 
nating candidates and insuring unity of action, 
but whatever there were prior to 1756 were con- 
tinued. The party, therefore, held together, 
and practically the only change was in the stand- 
ard-bearers. 

The opposition was drawn mainly on denomi- 
national lines, and consisted of Episcopalians 
and Presbyterians. The former gave their po- 
litical support to the proprietors, who had now 


Introductory. 9 


joined their church, and thus controlled the Ex- 
ecutive Council. Many of the latter were the 
Scotch-Irish of the frontiers, a resolute and mili- 
tant body, who felt the brunt of Indian attack, 
and while caring but little for the welfare of the 
Penns, were driven into their support by the 
desire to pursue a vigorous warfare against the 
barbarians who were murdering and ravishing 
their families and destroying the fruits of their 
labors. They did not attempt to conceal their 
scorn for the Quaker policy of feeding and con- 
ciliating the Indians, and were ever urging upon 
the Government the necessity of strenuous meas- 
ures for killing them. The Quakers in turn 
looked upon them as radical opponents of their 
whole scheme of government, and as represent- 
ing their former persecutors of Old and New 
England. <A little later, when the aggressions of 
the English Government became the issue, there 
was a somewhat different alignment of parties, 
but now the Quaker and Presbyterian repre- 
sented the two hostile extremes. The great 
body of Germans, quiet and conservative, never 
disturbing the Indians—notwithstanding, on ac- 
count of their exposed position, they suffered to 
some extent from them—gave their large support 
steadily to the Quaker side. The superior num- 


10 Quakers in the Revolution. 


bers, political strength and social influence of the 
three oldest counties, including Philadelphia, 
and their large representation in the Assembly, 
gave overwhelming power to the same cause. 
These conditions enabled the “ Quaker party” 
to maintain its unquestioned ascendency steadily 
until the year 1776, when it suddenly fell to 
pieces and forever disappeared. 

The proprietorship was now vested in the sons 
of the founder by his second wife, Thomas and 
Richard Penn, Thomas owning the larger share. 
They had vast financial interests in Pennsylva- 
nia, and the right to appoint the Governor, and, 
through their instructions to him, to veto legisla- 
tion. He surrounded himself with a Council of 
his own and their selection, whose church affilia- 
tions were in the main those of the Proprietors. 

Notwithstanding the injunctions of the 
Yearly Meeting, several prominent Friends re- 
tained official position through these years. 
William Logan, the son of James Logan, Wil- 
liam Penn’s secretary, was a member of the 
Governor’s Council from 1743 to 1776, when 
it was dissolved. He gave his lonely vote against 
Indian wars, and while probably holding his fa- 
ther’s views as to the propriety of war in certain 
circumstances, retained the respect both of the 


THOMAS PENN. 


FROM THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE POSSESSION OF 
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 


Introductory. 11 


Penns, whose attorney he was, and of his eccle- 
siastical friends and relatives. 

Isaac Norris, the “ Speaker,” as he is usually 
called, was the son of William Penn’s confiden- 
tial adviser, the sagacious, conscientious and 
wealthy Isaac Norris. He was elected a member 
of the Assembly, in 1734, from the city of Phila- 
delphia, and served for thirty years. In early 
life he continually opposed all warlike measures, 
and the “Norris Party”? had to encounter the 
violent opposition—amounting in one instance to 
a street riot—of those who advocated war with 
Spain, France and the Indians. He was uni- 
formly successful at the polls, and in 1751 was 
made Speaker, which place he held by successive 
elections for fifteen years. It was he who sug- 
gested the inscription on the Liberty Bell, 
“Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to 
all the inhabitants thereof.” He was a valiant 
opponent of proprietary claims, and was ap- 
pointed with Franklin, in 1757, as agent of the 
colony to ask the Crown to remove the griey- 
ances, but declined on account of ill-health. He 
opposed, however, the transfer of the Proprie- 
tors’ rights to the Crown, and resigned his speak- 
ership in 1764, when the Assembly passed reso- 
lutions demanding it. He was, however, re- 
elected. He died in 1766. 


12 Quakers in the Revolution. 


He did not deem it necessary to resign in 1756 
with the other Quaker members. As Speaker it 
became his duty to sign all acts passed by the 
Assembly, and his name attached to the bills 
making appropriations for definite military 
measures indicates the character of his views on 
the morality of war when wars seemed neces- 
sary. He was, however, greatly esteemed both 
by Friends and the general public for his ability, 
his character, and his love of liberty, tempered 
by conservative views of the means to be used 
for its protection. 

The Pemberton brothers had a commanding 
influence in the years preceding the Revolution. 
They were much esteemed and trusted in public 
affairs, and, unlike Logan and Norris, were also 
actively interested in the management of the 
meetings. Their father, Israel Pemberton, a 
wealthy merchant of Philadelphia, was for nine- 
teen years a member of the Assembly. His son 
Israel was also an Assemblyman and a leader in 
supporting the peace principles of his sect against 
the efforts of the governors. Later in life he be- 
came so much opposed to the trend of political 
affairs that he declined even to vote. He was 
the head of the Friendly Association, whose ob- 
ject was to preserve peace with the Indians; and 


Introductory. 13 


he took a prominent part in all conferences and 
treaties. He was one of the founders of the 
Pennsylvania Hospital, which ever since has 
been largely managed by Friends. James, not 
less prominent in the church, was far more of a 
politician, and his letters betray the continual 
desire of an active and aggressive mind to take 
part in the polities of the day, for which he was 
eminently fitted. He went into the Assembly 
when about thirty years old, but resigned in 
1756 on account of the Indian war. Ten years 
later, the troubles being largely blown over, he 
again accepted an election, against the advice of 
many of his friends, only to give it up when the 
commotions preceding the Revolution made a 
sacrifice of principle again apparently inevitable. 
John, the third brother, was a preacher, with no 
apparent interest in public matters—a type of 
the “ consistent ” Friend. 

The three brothers were all members of a 
band of a score of influential Quakers, who were 
banished to Virginia, in 1777, without trial, on 
account of supposed sympathy with the 
British.* 


*The Pembertons were in frequent correspondence with 
the Fothergills, the Barclays, and other prominent Friends 
of England, with Moses Brown, of Providence, and with the 


14 Quakers in the Revolution. 


William Denny was Lieutenant-Governor 
from 1756 to 1759. His career was one of con- 
tinual conflict with the Assembly. He had 
given bonds to carry out the instructions of the 
Proprietors, which were in complete opposition 
to the popular wish as regards the financial 
measures which the colonial condition was 
thought to demand. He was not to consent to 
any bills for the emission of paper currency be- 
yond a limited amount, or which did not place 
the expenditure of the proceeds in his own 
hands, and the grudging permission to tax pro- 
prietary estates was so coupled with difficult 
conditions as to render it unacceptable. 

The French war was going on all the time of . 
his administration, and while peace was made 
with some Indian tribes in 1758, chiefly through 
the agency of Friends and the “ Friendly Asso- 
ciation,” the savages did not cease to ravage the 
frontier. The line of forts extending from 
Easton southwestwardly across the Province to 
the Maryland boundary was an inefficient pro- 


active men of their own Yearly Meeting. This voluminous 
collection of letters is in existence, and contains reliable 
and graphic, though somewhat verbose, accounts of public 
affairs through the pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary 
times from the standpoint of strict Friends. They will be 
frequently used in this book. 


Introductory. 15 


tection, and large sums were constantly needed 
for military defence. The Assembly did not 
seem averse to granting liberally for the pur- 
pose, but took advantage of the situation to 
make conditions strengthening their claims. 
Except the £600 voted him on his accession, in 
an outburst of hopeful loyalty, Governor Denny 
received no salary, and finally became convinced 
that his interests were more identified with the 
people than with the Proprietors. He assented 
to a bill taxing the proprietary estates, and was 
rewarded with £1,000. Another equal sum fol- 
lowed his assent to each of two other bills, and 
though he immediately lost his place, the £3,000 
must have been a partial consolation. 

Benjamin Franklin was at this time in Eng- 
land for the purpose of making terms with the 
Proprietors by treaty or pressure from the 
Crown, and very soon showed the diplomatic 
skill for which he afterwards became famous. 
His measures were not always scrupulous. In 
his endeavors to blacken the fame of the Pro- 
prietors, he wrote or issued the anonymous pub- 
lication, the “ Historical Review of the Constitu- 
tion and Government of Pennsylvania,” a tissue 
of misstatements and partisanship. The ar- 
rangements finally effected, in 1759, through his 
skilful management, wrested from the Proprie- 


16 Quakers in the Revolution. 


tors a consent to much that the Assembly had 
claimed. 

The second administration of James Hamil- 
ton (1759-1763) followed the rather inglorious 
exit of Denny, and the struggle went on. A 
rising tide of resistance to proprietary claims 
covered the Province. The question most at 
issue was the right of the House, or the counter- 
right of the Executive, to control the expendi- 
tures. To be at the mercy of English owners, 
whose personal interests would, according to 
their construction, be in perpetual conflict with 
those of the Provincee—who, moreover, were not 
frank in their dealings with the representatives 
of the people, but tied down their agents with 
instructions under penal bonds, which it was 
difficult to ascertain, and which the agent had no 
authority to modify—would inevitably be pro- 
ductive of controversy. While the same power 
existed in earlier times, it was leniently exer- 
cised. Between 1710 and 1740 there was hardly 
a ripple of discontent, but every one throve 
under and rejoiced in the beneficent charter. 
Immigration was active, trade grew, peace was 
secure, taxes were practically unfelt, and the 
powers of the Assembly were unquestioned. But 
during the latter year the first serious demands 


Introductory. 17 


were made for men and money for wars against 
England’s enemies;—demands which grew 
greater with the succeeding years, causing great 
uneasiness among the peace men of the prov- 
ince, and stirring up disputes as to the methods 
to be employed in raising the money. These 
troubles gradually but manifestly changed 
Pennsylvania from a colony remarkably free, 
prosperous and unburdened, to one disunited 
and struggling under a heavy load of expendi- 
ture and consequent taxes. 

The Assembly had been all these years the 
faithful conservators of the liberties of the peo- 
ple. Conscious that this condition had been 
forced upon them partly by the Crown and 
partly by the Proprietors, and that the warlike 
pressure was used to extort money by means de 
structive of liberty, they refused to make grants 
except when coupled with terms which secured 
popular rights. It were better to endure even 
the massacres on the frontiers than to have the 
Province brought more closely under the control 
of Proprietors who were using it as their private 
plantation for purposes of gain. “No man shall 
ever stand on my grave and say, ‘Curse him; 
here lies he who betrayed the liberties of his 
country!’ ” declared their Speaker, Norris. 


18 Quakers in the Revolution. 


And now, after twenty years of struggle, the 
people and the Assembly, incensed against the 
Proprietors, could see no other relief than an 
application to England to annul the charter 
granted by William Penn, and take from his 
sons the power to have any control over the 
government of the Province. They preferred 
to receive their Governor directly from the Eng- 
lish Crown, and take their chances of royal as 
against proprietary encroachments. This was 
unquestionably the popular thing, and in 1764 
the Assembly, by an almost unanimous vote, 
directed Franklin to press the matter to an issue. 

They had a strong case against the Penns. 
Though as property-owners the Proprietors were 
entitled to no other consideration than other 
property-owners, yet they continually used their 
political authority to advance their personal in- 
terests. This was the cause of all the bickering 
and delay over legislation, and kept the colony 
embroiled in internal discord. To augment their 
revenue they had greatly increased the number 
of licensed drinking-houses, much to the detri- 
ment of public morals. Whenever a purchase 
was made of the Indians they would locate and 
survey the best lands, doing nothing to occupy 
them, but depending for their profits on the 


Introductory 19 


increased value brought to them by surrounding 
settlers. This made frontier farms isolated, and 
exposed them to Indian attack. Under these 
circumstances their demands for relief of taxa- 
tion on unoccupied lands were unreasonable, and 
manifestly sought to place upon the poor fron- 
tiersmen a double burden. Taxation upon the 
proprietary estates certainly never erred in the 
direction of excess. 

But reverence for the old charter had not 
passed away. Norris opposed the movement, 
and many of the steadier Friends stood with 
him. Before Franklin had made much progress 
he received an intimation to go slowly, and very 
soon the Stamp Act and the growing disposition 
of the English government to assert its power 
over the colonies took away from the Pennsyl- 
vanians all desire to change masters, and the mat- 
ter was allowed to drop. 

In 1760 the French war was practically ended 
by the surrender of Montreal and the transpor- 
tation of the French troops to their home, 
though peace was not declared till 1763. The 
whole of Canada and Louisiana were surren- 
dered, and the ambitious attempt to confine Eng- 
land to a narrow strip along the coast, while to 
the north and west and south the great power 


20 Quakers in the Revolution. 


of France and her Indian allies should be su- 
preme, was forever abandoned. 

The Assembly hastily took advantage of the 
situation to disband all its troops, except one 
hundred and fifty men, while the Governor 
tried to pacify the discontented Indians by con- 
ferences and presents; and in 1763 a successful 
expedition to Fort Pitt seemed to break the 
power of the Indian confederacy of the west. 

The colony now hoped for peace, but the In- 
dian appetite for murder and plunder, whetted 
by custom and a sense of unjust treatment, was 
not easily controlled, and for several years the 
frontiers were subjected to the desolations of 
savage attack, causing great suffering to out- 
lying settlers, increasing exasperation against 
the Quakers, who were held partly responsible 
for the conditions, and heavy burdens on the tax- 
payers for defence. 

John Penn, the son of Richard Penn, and 
grandson of the founder, became Lieutenant- 
Governor in 1763. This place, or that of Gev- 
ernor, after he became a Proprietor on the 
death of his father, he retained till the Revolu- 
tion, except during a two years’ visit to Eng- 
land in 1771-73, when his brother Richard, the 
most popular of the family, filled the position. 


JOHN PENN, GOVERNOR, 


From an Etching by Albert Rosenthal. 


The Friendly Association. 91 


CHAPTER Il. 


THE FRIENDLY ASSOCIATION. 


The early Pennsylvanians had ample reward 
for their fair treatment of the Indians in the 
abundant peace and prosperity that ensued. It 
was not merely the fact of purchase, though 
William Penn probably paid the Indians lber- 
ally, that prepossessed them in his favor. In 
various other matters he impressed them with 
the idea of anxiety for their welfare and a desire 
to protect their interests. 

He restricted the trade in skins to agents 
whom he thought trustworthy, and required the 
weighing to be done in public; he advocated 
mixed juries in cases where both races were con- 
cerned; he did not drive them from the lands he 
purchased unless settlers were ready to take pos- 
session, and he allowed the Indians to repur- 
chase as his subjects; he did his best to keep rum 
from them. Some of these benevolent schemes 
proved impracticable and had short lives; but 
they proved to the Indians that Onas was their 
unselfish and trustworthy friend, and through 
generations of tradition nothing could shake 


22 Quakers in the Revolution. 


their belief in this fact. His brethren in relig- 
ious profession seconded his efforts and shared 
the Indian confidence. The red man passed by 
them, even in the madness of border outrage; he 
sought their dwellings when in strange cities; he 
demanded their presence at conferences and 
treaties as a pledge of justice; he looked to them 
for the presents which, in the Indian mind, ce- 
mented friendship, and was duly grateful. 

It became a recognized part of the Quaker 
policy of government to appropriate large sums 
for the maintenance of Indian good-will. Be- 
tween 1733 and 1751, a period of perfect peace, 
we find record of over £8,000 expended for this 
purpose, besides the ordinary expenses of In- 
dian affairs. And when we consider the nar- 
rowing of their hunting ground, the breaking up 
of all their cherished habits of life, and the 
havoc wrought by the vices and diseases of the 
whites, the grant may be defended on the 
grounds of justice, as well as of policy. The 
same practice has obtained in recent years in our 
national treatment of them, for it has been 
found cheaper, fairer, and better in every way, 
to feed the Indian than to fight him. 

This policy was attacked ‘bn'the ground that 
it gave the worthless, drinking savages money 


The Friendly Association. 23 


which might better be appropriated to suffering 
settlers; that it pauperized them and destroyed 
their savage virility; and that when given after 
a war as the price of peace, it was an actual in- 
centive soon to renew hostilities for the sake of 
another reward. There is some justice in this; 
but the history of the years prior to 1755, as 
compared with the score of years following, is 
emphatically in favor of the Quaker policy, 
whether we consider economy, white men’s pros- 
perity, or red men’s welfare. 

Up to 1751, Indian affairs were largely in 
the hands of James Logan, who had conducted 
them for almost half a century with prudence 
and success. He became greatly influential with 
the natives, and while not always quite able to 
restrain the Governor and Council, had a power 
by virtue of his character and services which no 
successor could wield. 

The vestiges of the holy experiment disap- 
peared when, in 1755, the Delaware Indians and 
their allies, the successors of those who had 
treated with William Penn, joined the French 
and attacked the border whites of Pennsylvania. 
As Quaker influence could no longer be exerted 
through the executive branch of the government, 
it seemed necessary to have a new organization 


24 Quakers in the Revolution. 


to deal directly with the troublesome Indian 
question, and in course of time “ The Friendly 
Association for regaining and preserving peace 
with the Indians by pacific measures,” was 
formed. 

The Walking Purchase of 1737, and the subse- 
quent forcible removal of the Minisink Indians; 
the Albany treaty of 1754, when all Western 
Pennsylvania was sold to the Penns by the Six 
Nations without the consent of the dwellers on 
the soil; the intrigues of the French to secure 
the alliance of the discontented under promise of 
recovery of their hunting grounds, and the impo- 
sitions of traders, had made the Delawares and 
Shawnees the open enemies of the English, and 
the Indian war broke out on the northern and 
western borders of the white settlement. The 
records of the times are full of the harassing 
details. Petitions for protection came in from 
dwellers all along the line, and the province was 
worked up to an excitement never before known. 
As has been so often seen in our history, the na- 
tives, goaded by wrongs, had in desperation in- 
stituted their cruel warfare, to be met by stern 
denunciation and a fierce cry for their exter- 
mination. 

The first effort of the new association, in which 


FRIENDS’ MEETING-HOUSE AT MERION, PA 


BUILT IN 1695—(OLD VIEW.) 


William Penn was for some time a regular attender of the meetings held here. 


OF us = x 7, es “a etalk 
eEW Cass ¥ Vx, Mea 
a: 
a 
- - 4 
- 
: 
t 


Pf 
Me 


The Friendly Association. 25 


Israel Pemberton took the leading part, was to 
make a final effort to avert the declaration of 
war on the part of the Governor. In the min- 
utes of the Provincial Council, under date of 
April 12th, 1756, we find: 


Several of the strict and reputable Quakers presented 
an address to the Governor, bearing their testimony against 
war, expressing their apprehensions at this declaration, and 
praying that amicable methods might be further tried. Mr. 
Logan [William Logan, son of James Logan] moved for a 
full council to be called this evening, and the summons 
served instantly. 


The address appealed to the Governor to con- 
sider the very disastrous results of war, and to 
make yet further efforts for peace, and added: 


We hope to demonstrate by our conduct that every oc- 
casion of assisting and relieving the distressed, and con- 
tributing towards the obtaining of peace in a manner con- 
sistent with our peaceable profession, will be cheerfully 
improved by us, and even though a much larger part of 
our estates should be necessary than the heaviest taxes of 
a war can be expected to require, we shall cheerfully, 
by voluntary presents, evidence our sincerity therein. 


AG This offer was made in reply to the charge. 


that the Quakers were indifferent to suffering 
on the frontiers, and were refusing the payment 
of the war tax just levied, under a false plea of 
conscience. 

The attempt to influence the Council was not 
successful, as indeed, since nothing new was 


26 Quakers in the Revolution. 


presented, it was hardly expected to be, “and 
after full consideration and debate all the Coun- 
cil [except Mr. Logan, who desired his dissent 
might be entered on the minutes] agreed that 
the Governor ought not to delay declaring war 
against the enemy Indians. The bounties for 
prisoners and scalps were then considered and 
agreed to.”* 

The efforts to avert war being unavailing, the 
association made its next attempt to detach some 
of the northern Delawares under Tedyuscung 
from the French alliance, and to conclude a 
separate peace with them. Several thousand 
pounds were raised, mostly by Friends, but 
partly also by Schwenkfelders and other sympa- 
thetic German bodies, to purchase presents to be 
distributed on the conclusion of peace. 

The first step taken was to send a delegation 
of friendly Indians to express a desire for a con- 
ference. “From the time of the first messen- 
gers arriving at Teaogan (Tioga),” Israel Pem- 
berton says, “ hostilities on our northern frontier 
ceased, and an acceptable respite being obtained 
for our distresed fellow-subjects, we enjoyed so 
much real pleasure and satisfaction in the happy 


* Colonial Records, vol. viii, p. 84. 


The Friendly Association. 27 


event of our endeavors as to engage us cheer- 
fully to pursue the business we had begun, 
though many malicious calumnies and asper- 
sions were cast upon us by persons by whom we 
had a right to expect encouragement.” 

Then followed a series of conferences, in 
which was much scheming at cross purposes. 
The Governor and Secretary Peters were most 
insistent to prevent any blame being attached 
to the Proprietors in connection with fraudulent 
purchases of lands. But Tedyuscung would not 
be refused, and whether drunk or sober adhered 
to his story of wrong, and demanded reparation. 
The Friendly Association, acting merely by suf- 
ferance, with nothing to gain for themselves, 
endeavored to be mediators, so as to secure jus- 
tice to the Indians, and also to act as loyal sub- 
jects of the Government. Unquestionably the 
success of Tedyuscung, who trusted them im- 
plicitly as the “Sons of Onas,” was due to their 
advice and suggestions, though he himself 
proved to be no mean diplomat. The Five Na- 
tions constituted another factor. The desire of 
the Governor was to use their influence to choke 
off the Delaware claims, while the Association 
sought to gain their help in encouraging peace 
propositions. 


28 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The first of these conferences was at Easton, 
in 1756. The Indians appeared to desire peace, 
but Tedyuscung was not secure in his authority, 
and needed time to bring other tribes into the 
arrangements. He was dined, and left in a 
friendly humor. The presents of the Friendly 
Association were, by direction of the Governor, 
(who at one time refused permission to the 
Friends to deliver any present to the Indians), 
finally given, with those provided by the goy- 
ernment. 

Later in the same year a meeting of the 
Friends was held at the house of Israel Pember- 
ton, and they adopted the following address to 
Governor Denny, who had just come into office: 


The address of a considerable number of the people called 
Quakers, in the city of Philadelphia, for themselves and 
their brethren in other parts of the said Province, showeth 
that the calamities and desolation of our fellow-subjects 
on the frontiers of the Province having been the painful 
subject of our frequent consideration, with desires to be 
instrumental towards their relief by every means in our 
power consistent with the peaceable principles we profess, 
some of us had, by the permission of Governor Morris, 
some conferences last spring with some Indian chiefs of the 
Six Nations, from whence we are confirmed in our appre- 
hensions that there was a prospect of some good effect by 
further endeavors to promote pacific measures with the 
Delaware Indians, on the northern frontiers of this Prov- 
ince. 

That immediately after the conference Governor Morris 
sent a message to the Indians, in which he particularly 
mentioned our earnest desires to interpose with the Goy- 


The Friendly Association. 29 


ernment to receive their submission, and establish a firm 
and lasting peace with them. 

That from the accounts given us by the Indians who de- 
livered this message, we were informed that the Delawares 
reposed great confidence in the continuance of our endeav- 
ors to that purpose, and after the receipt of a second mes- 
sage, some of them were induced to meet Governor Morris 
at Easton, and there laid the foundation of a more general 
treaty. That a considerable number of us atttended the 
said treaty at Easton, and, from the conduct and express 
declarations of the Indians were assured that our personal 
attendance was very acceptable to them and conducive to 
the general service. 

That in confirmation of the sincerity of our desires to pro- 
mote the restoration of peace, we had provided a present 
of such clothing for these Indians as they appeared to be 
immediately in want of, which Governor Morris was pleased 
to deliver them in our behalf. 

That as we are now informed, a much larger number of 
Indians are waiting to meet the governor at Easton. Being 
still desirous of promoting the restoration and establishment 
of peace with them, we are ready and willing, by personally 
attending the treaty, to manifest the continuance of our 
care and concern herein, and our hearty disposition to re- 
gain and improve the friendship of the Indians to the gen- 
eral interest of our country; and if our furnishing a supply 
of clothing for them against the approaching winter, in ad- 
dition to what is provided at the public expense, may in 
any measure tend to these purposes and be consistent with 
the Governor’s pleasure, we shall cheerfully provide and 
send them to the place appointed for the treaty, to be de- 
livered them by the Governor in such manner as will most 
effectually promote the public service, and express our 
friendly disposition towards them. All of which is with 
much respect submitted to the consideration of the Gov- 
ernor. 


The treaty which followed was not conclusive, 
but tended to draw whites and Indians together. 


30 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The king complained of the forged deeds of 
1686, and of the Walking Purchase which had 
robbed his people of the ground where they now 
stood, and Secretary Peters admitted in private 
that the “Walk” could not be vindicated. “The 
Proprietors always despised it,’”’ he said, “and it 
was unworthy of any government.” He was, 
however, unwilling to open the question, and the 
meeting terminated with nothing definite estab- 
lished. The Commissioners appointed by the 
Assembly, however, sympathized with the In- 
dians and with the Friendly Association, and the 
aggressive secretary to the Governor was in- 
duced to yield his contention that there were no 
real grievances, only French intrigue. Presents 
were exchanged, and Tedyuseung, following the 
Friends to the ferry, told them “ he had endeay- 
ored to turn in his mind and look up to God for 
direction; that when he was alone in the woods 
and destitute of every other counsellor, he found 
by doing so he had the best direction; that he 
hoped God would bless our endeavors, and 
wanted Friends to remember him. He followed 
us to the boat, and was so much affected he could 
only by tears manifest his respect.” It would 
not have been difficult to preserve peace with 


The Friendly Association. 31 


such a man, if any respectable treatment had 
been accorded him. 

Another conference followed in Lancaster, in 
1757, thus described in a letter from James 
Pemberton to Samuel Fothergill: 


In the Fifth month last a treaty was held at Lancaster 
with a number of the Five Nations Indians, who had come 
down in consequence of an invitation from the Government 
to attend the proposed treaty with the Delawares, which 
was expected could have been held early in the spring, but 
that the old king (Tedyuseung), had not been able to ac- 
complish his business of collecting the several tribes who 
were interested in the matter. The views of our politicians 
were greatly frustrated in the issue of that treaty, as they 
fully expected the Five Nations would have undertaken to 
have confirmed the land purchases and challenged the 
Delawares for their complaints, but on the contrary they 
avoided this and acted with as much policy and more can- 
dor than ourselves (our politicians). These poor people, 
after being long detained, much to their loss, many of the 
principal men, and some of those we could place the most 
confidence in, being taken off with the small-pox, yet 
went home pretty well satisfied, and great numbers of 
Friends attended this treaty from various parts of the 
country. 


A more important conference was held later 
in the same year at Easton, where Tedyuscung 
had collected representatives of a large number 
of tribes who owned his sway. The Governor 
at first refused to allow the Friends to partici- 
pate, alleging that they were trying to persuade 
the Indians to attach themselves to their own 


32 Quakers in the Revolution. 


particular interest, and that subjects had no 
right to treat with foreign powers. In reply to 
this they sent him a long address, rehearsing how 
they had endeavored to have the Indian griev- 
ances inquired into instead of raising soldiers 
and building forts against them, which had only 
aggravated the conditions, and that they still 
believed a peaceful policy the best in treating 
with them, and finally that Tedyuscung refused 
to go into the treaty unless the Quakers were to 
be there, They reminded the Governor that the 
first settlers were men of standing and property, 
who bought the land of the Proprietor with the 
understanding that he should clear up all titles, 
Indian and other; which agreement the first 
Proprietor had kept. They therefore had some 
right to know that the bargain was still intact, 
and that the present Indian claims on the land 
were satisfied. 

The Governor still persisted in his refusal to 
permit them to give goods to the Indians, or to 
attend the treaty as a body. They went, how- 
ever, and had an important influence on the re- 
sult, with their £500 of presents. 

Tedyuscung made the unexpected demand 
for a private clerk to take note of the proceed- 
ings; as he evidently distrusted—not without 


The Friendly Association. 33 


cause, as was afterwards proven—the notes of the 
Governor’s agents. This demand was opposed 
by the Governor, who spent four days in pro- 
testing, intimating that the Quakers were at the 
bottom of this request, which, indeed, was not 
unlikely. When the Indian firmly announced 
that he would break up the conference if the de- 
mand was not complied with, the Governor 
yielded, and Charles Thomson, a young man, 
then master of the Friends’ public school of 
Philadelphia, afterwards the secretary of the 
Continental Congress, was made clerk to the old 
king. The Quaker schoolmaster performed an 
important part in the treaty, and afterwards 
wrote up the whole history of the “ Alienation 
of the Delaware and Shawnee Indians” im a lit- 
tle book, which is still our highest authority on 
the subject. 

The flow of debate and oratory was kept up 
uninterruptedly for nearly three weeks, and a 
treaty of peace resulted. Tedyusecung ap- 
parently having carried his point that the old 
deeds should be examined and his tribe recom- 
pensed for injuries done them. He was, how- 
ever, deceived by the Governor, who did not 
produce the deeds the Indians most desired to 
have referred to the arbitrament of the Crown, 


34 Quakers in the Revolution. 


but others of minor consequence. The Friends 
failed to call Tedyuscung’s attention to this er- 
ror, fearful of its effects upon him, and hoping 
to prevail on the Governor to forward the proper 
ones. 

The transaction was hardly calculated to se- 
cure a lasting peace. 

James Pemberton, in a letter to Samuel 
Fothergill, under date of Fifth month 25th, 
1758, gives an idea of the Indian condition after 
this treaty: 


I herewith send thee a copy of the conferences which have 
been held with Tedyuscung this spring, by which it appears 
there hath been a favorable prospect of an agreeable issue 
to the prosecution of pacific measures, and if our govern- 
ment were but as hearty in endeavors as the old king ap- 
pears to be, and as some of their speeches to the Indians 
would insinuate, we might, through the continued blessing 
of Providence, obtain a more extensive alliance and friend- 
ship with the natives than ever before. Our frontiers re- 
mained unmolested all winter. . . . The Indians are acting 
on as politic views, as our most sagacious statemen can 
be; they find it their interest to be at peace with us in re- 
gard to trade, and seem to have a natural dislike to the 
French, but are determined to have justice done them by 
the English on account of their land. ... They (the Gov- 
ernor and Council) want the Indians to retract the com- 
plaint of fraud against the Proprietor or his agent, which 
they look upon as dishonorable, and I believe are now con- 
scious of the truth of it. 


The next step of the Friendly Association 
was to attempt to promote peace with the West- 


The Friendly Association. 35 


ern Indians, and finding the Assembly were 
short of funds to send commissioners offered to 
loan the money. The proposition was accepted 
with the thanks of the House “ for their friendly 
and generous offer.” Though the House was 
composed of a minority of Friends only, it was 
always in close accord with the Association in 
Indian matters. 

Still another treaty was held at Easton, late 
in 1758. Tedyuscung had enlarged his follow- 
ing, having with him about five hundred In- 
dians. The apparent object of the meeting was 
to bring against him accusations of unfaithful- 
ness by his old enemies, the Five Nations, from 
whom he had freed himself, and to induce him 
to withdraw his charges against the Proprietors. 
The attempt was a failure. “Ted,” as James 
Pemberton calls him, maintained his stand, and 
the conference ended rather ingloriously by get- 
ting the Indians drunk, and extracting from 
them signatures to deeds conveying lands far 
in excess of their knowledge, and only partially 
paid for. A member of the Friendly Associa- 
tion writes: “The time was spent in attempt- 
ing Tedyuscung’s downfall, and silencing or con- 
tradicting the complaints he had made; but he is 
really more of a politician than any of his oppo- 


36 Quakers in the Revolution. 


nents, whether in or out of our Proprietary 
Council, and if he could only be kept sober 
might probably soon become Emperor of all the 
neighboring uations.” 

To a certain extent these treaties were a part 
of the political game of the times. The Gover- 
nor and Council, agents for the Proprietors, were 
engaged in an attempt to shield the reputation 
of their employers, and in this were seconded by 
part of the Five Nations. Undeterred by the 
obloquy of the Walking Purchase and the Al- 
bany Treaty of 1754, they were adding to their 
discredit and increasing their wealth by new 
offences. On the other hand the Commissioners 
of the Assembly unquestionably were not dis- 
posed to lighten the opprobrium, and were de- 
lighted in the skill and firmness of the old Dela- 
ware king. The Friendly Association, composed 
of men who had voluntarily sacrificed political 
power, though undoubtedly sympathizing with 
the Assembly, were seeking to undo the evils 
let loose by the bad faith of the Proprietors, and 
to restore harmony on all sides. 

The Governor, in the name of the Council, 
sent a report, in 1758, to the Proprietor, which 
contained this paragraph: 


We can not but impute the said Tedyuscung’s making 
the base charge of forgery against the Proprietaries to the 


The Friendly Association. 37 


malicious suggestions and management of some wicked peo- 
ple, enemies to the Proprietaries, and perhaps it would not 
be unjust in us if we were to impute it to some of those 
busy, forward people, who, in disregard of the express in- 
junctions of His Majesty’s ministers, and your Honors re- 
peated notices served on them, would nevertheless appear 
in such crowds at the late Indian treaties, and there show 
themselves so busy and active, in the management and sup- 
port of the Indians in those complaints against the Pro- 
prietaries. 


The English Friends secured information of 
this report, and advised their Philadelphia breth- 
ren; and upon this the Meeting for Sufferings ad- 
dressed the Governor, denying any desire to 
damage the Proprietors, and urging a wish, pre- 
viously preferred, to examine the minutes of the 
Council to obtain material to clear themselves. 
This the Governor refused. 

The paper they especially desired to see was 
a report investigating the complaints of Tedy- 
uscung, afterwards printed in the Records of 
the Council.* It is a long report, going over 
the various causes of dissatisfaction, and defends 
the “ Walk” and other matters of controversy, 
containing also the paragraph above quoted. 
Benjamin Shoemaker and William Logan, of the 
Council, declared the report had been sent with- 
out their knowledge, and that the first informa- 
tion they had of it came by way of London. It 


* Colonial Records, vol. viii, p. 246. 


38 Quakers in the Revolution. 


was now for the first time ordered to be placed 
on the minutes. 

In 1759 the Friendly Association, through 
Israel Pemberton, sent to Pittsburg two thou- 
sand pounds’ worth of goods to be equitably sold 
or given to the Indians. Later in the year the 
British Government desired it to forward to the 
same place at its expense another consignment 
for a similar purpose. 

The minutes of the later years of the Associa- 
tion are lost. Its life was probably extended till 
1764, or, as some say, to 1767. Its representa- 
tives attended two conferences in 1762:—one at 
Easton with Tedyuscung, in which he was in- 
duced to withdraw his charge of forgery against 
the Proprietors, but still insisted that the 
“Walk” was not properly performed, and re- 
ceived a_ satisfactory compensation for his 
mulcted lands; the other at Lancaster, where a 
general peace with the Northern and Western 
Indians was concluded. It could not, however, 
prevent the great conspiracy of Pontiac, which, 
in 1768, renewed the war all along the colonial 
frontier, and exasperated the borderers against 
all Indians everywhere. When, at Fort Stan- 
wix, in 1768, the final treaty was made which 
quieted the Indian question for the Colonial 


The Friendly Association. 39 


period, the Association was no longer in exist- 
ence. 

One cannot well attribute other than humane 
and well-meant intentions to this Association. 
Its undertakings cost too much in time and 
money, and there was too little to be gained per- 
sonally by its promoters, to allow us to suppose 
that selfish considerations entered into their mo- 
tives. That their presents were often of doubt- 
ful advantage to the Indian may be admitted. 
Indeed, the best thing for the Indian would have 
been to place an impassable barrier between him- 
self and the whites. But this could not be done, 
and, like the weak barbarian he was, he desired 
the good things of the white, and would not be 
satisfied without them. 

It was something more than the forms of jus- 
tice that he so tenaciously appreciated in the 
Quakers,—it was their effort to conform to his 
own ideas of justice. It may have been true that 
in the Albany purchase of 1754 the Proprietors’ 
plan of buying of the sovereign without regard 
to the rights of the subject dwellers on the land 
was in accord with the recognized principles of 
law. It was not in accord with Indian ideas of 
fairness; and even in legal strictness the suze- 
rainty was rather too faintly recognized to jus- 


40 Quakers in the Revolution. 


tify the sale of vast tracts, covering the entire 
property of whole tribes. It was, at any rate in 
Indian eyes, gross injustice, to be resisted by all 
means. William Penn would never have forced 
this purchase upon them. Had it been necessary 
to have their land he would have satisfied them 
as well as their feudal lords. The Friendly Asso- 
ciation meant to follow the methods of the 
founder, and the Indians knew it. 

The gain to the Province by a consistent 
course of fair dealing would have been immense. 
The friendship of the Indian would have been 
an effective buffer against French attack. The 
whites might have reposed in safety behind their 
red defenders. The troubles of finance and tax- 
ation, which created the hard feeling of the peo- 
ple against the Proprietors, would never have 
arisen, and the reign of peace and security might 
have had another twenty years of existence. 
The Quaker experiment of peace succeeded 
while Quaker justice to the Indian prevailed. 
When the Proprietors departed from this, peace 
departed and Quaker rule terminated. 

But, even granting all this, it may be plausi- 
bly maintained that in the end the Quaker policy 
would have defeated itself. The tremendous 
immigration induced by the free principles of 


The Friendly Association. 41 


government, and the security from savage at- 
tack, filled up the country at a rapid rate. Lands 
were cleared and hunting grounds vanished. 
What were the Indians to do? Labor was irk- 
some, civilization they did not want, and their 
country was emptied of game. A greater prob- 
lem than even William Penn solved was the in- 
heritance of his sons, and even had they attacked 
it in the spirit of their father they might have 
failed. But we have learned something of the 
Indians since that day; and while we know they 
are unspeakably cruel in war, we have also ascer- 
tained that they are trustworthy to friends, faith- 
ful to treaties, and reasonable in meeting half- 
way any advances made in good-will. Hence we 
may believe that there would have been found 
some feasible right way to settle the Indian 
question in Pennsylvania in the last century 
without fraud or war. 


42 Quakers in the Revolution. 


CHAPTER III. 


THE PAXTON RIOT. 


Before leaving the Indian subject we must 
relate one other episode which greatly disturbed 
the serenity of Pennsylvania Quakerism. 

Governor John Penn came into office in Oc- 
tober, 1763. On the 19th of December he laid 
before his Council an address of welcome he had 
received from the Conestoga Indians. This 
once powerful tribe, which had treated with 
William Penn on his first arrival and secured 
from him permission to reside on his manor in 
Lancaster County, had now dwindled down to 
twenty poor Indians, who lived by making 
brooms and baskets and peddling them among 
their neighbors. Their address congratulated 
the new Governor, complained of encroachment 
upon their reservation, and asked for the cus- 
tomary provisions and clothing as a recompense 
for the loss of their hunting grounds. 

At the same meeting of the Council was read 
a letter stating that on the 14th inst. six of these 
Indians—three men, two women and a boy— 
had been murdered in their homes, their bodies 


The Paxton Riot. 43 


mutilated and burned, with their houses, by a 
party of fifty or sixty white rangers. 

The other fourteen were out selling brooms. 
They were quickly apprised of the danger that 
awaited them, and were hurried for protection to 
the Lancaster jail. A few days later the same 
band of whites galloped into the town in broad 
daylight, without any attempt at concealment, 
broke into the jail, butchered all the Indians, 
and rapidly and quietly rode away. These four- 
teen consisted of three men with their wives and 
eight children. The tribe was exterminated. 

The outlaws who committed this act were a 
body of settlers from the north of Ireland, who 
were fiercely exasperated against all Indians. 
They lived at Paxton and Donegal, south of 
Harrisburg, and with their friends became after- 
wards known as “Paxton Boys.” They were 
actuated partly by religious motives, quoting the 
command to the Israelites to destroy utterly the 
heathens of Palestine, but mainly they were 
madly desirous to avenge the sufferings of their 
friends at the hands of Indian invaders. (Their 
pastor, John Elder, though he preached a mili- 
tant Christianity in the pulpit, with his loaded 
rifle by his side, endeavored to restrain them 
when he found who were to be the objects of 


44 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Ny 
their wrath) Either they did not respect him, 
or did not believe in his sincerity, for they 
moved him aside with a gun at his breast and 
went on. 

There seems to have been little excuse for this 
outrage, except the general one so often urged 
since, that the only good Indian is a dead In- 
dian. It was suspected that these Indians had 
given information to their brethren on the war 
path. One of them had been accused of killing 
aman. But these charges were not proven; and 
the German neighbors usually considered them 
as harmless if improvident mendicants. 

The province was thoroughly aroused. A 
lynching was a new thing in Pennsylvania, and 
excited vastly more indignation than it would at 
the present time. Franklin wrote a vigorous 
and denunciatory pamphlet. Governor Penn 
issued two proclamations calling on the local 
authorities to enforce the law and offering re- 
wards. Philadelphia and the eastern counties in 
general were shocked and felt that the province 
was disgraced. 

This was not, however, the feeling where the 
deed was committed. The Paxton Boys gloried 
in their acts, and made no secret of them. 
Nothing could be done, for along the frontier 


The Paxton Riot. 45 


there was full sympathy with them, and no offi- 
cials would have dared to touch them. 

Emboldened by this sympathy they decided to 
extend their operations. A company of Indians 
had embraced Christianity through the efforts 
of the Moravians at Bethlehem, but as their loy- 
alty to the English was somewhat uncertain, and 
their safety in any exposed position decidedly 
precarious, it was concluded to move them—one 
hundred and forty in number—to Philadelphia. 
Fearful, however, that they still might fall a 
victim to the enmity of their white persecutors, 
they were further transported to New York. 
There the Governor refused to receive them, and 
under the control of two companies of soldiers 
they were returned to Philadelphia and placed 
in barracks in what was then the northern part 
of the city, near the corner of Third and Green 
Streets. 

The Paxton Boys, reénforced by stronger and 
steadier men who were deputed by border meet- 
ings to carry their grievances to Philadelphia, 
concluded to treat these Moravian Indians as 
they had those at Lancaster. If the Quakers 
defended them they were also to be murdered. 
It was to be a war of sects, with the Presbyterian 
and the Quaker in hostile array. 


46 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The motley crowd of perhaps five hundred 
men at the start, enlarged by popular report to 
ten times the number, soon passed over the 
ground from Lancaster to Philadelphia, and 
finding the ferries near the latter city over the 
Schuylkill guarded, and a heavy rain swelling 
the stream, crossed at what is now Norristown, 
and marched down to Germantown, where they 
encamped. They had apparently expected aid 
from their co-religionists in the city, but the af- 
fair partook too much of the nature of a riot and 
rebellion to command much sympathy among 
property-owners. 

Great was the excitement in the Quaker City. 
The Governor called for defenders for the In- 
dians, and the response was liberal. In the cold 
February weather the improvised citizen sol- 
diery drilled through the day, fortified the In- 
dian barracks, and slept at night subject to sud- 
den call. On the 4th undoubted information of 
the approach of the rioters was received. It was 
a rainy and stormy day, but the inhabitants 
camped at the barracks. On the 5th, at mid- 
night, an alarm was sounded. As previously ar- 
ranged, candles appeared in every window, but 
the expected enemy proved to be only a body of 
Germans coming to the aid of the defenders. 


The Paxton Riot. AT 


On the 6th the citizens were still under arms, 
but the Governor sent a committee, including 
Franklin, whose conduct during the whole pro- 
ceeding met with the highest approval of the 
Friends, to arrange terms of peace. There 
proved to be only about two hundred of the in- 
vaders, and they evidently had no chance against 
a whole city in arms, so they willingly presented 
their grievances and agreed to go home. Thirty 
of them took advantage of their proximity to 
see the town, and rode in. Immediately the 
alarm was sounded, and the valiant defenders 
again sprang to arms. The matter ended as a 
farce, without the loss of a drop of blood. 

The demands of the rioters on the Govern- 
ment were that the Moravian Indians should be 
banished, and no others allowed to live among 
the whites; that no attempt should be made to 
have the Paxton boys tried in Philadelphia; that 
the border counties should have a larger repre- 
sentation in the Assembly; that the Province, in- 
stead of voting money to propitiate hostile In- 
dians, should take care of wounded and suffering 
white men; and lastly, that the bounties for 
Indian scalps, which had been withdrawn, should 
be restored. Some of these demands were not 
unreasonable, but it is a melancholy record to 


48 Quakers in the Revolution. 


have to make that the last was the only one ac- 
ceded to; that the grandson of William Penn 
offered rewards for scalps of male and female 
Indians. 

Not only the Indians, but also certain promi- 
nent Friends, notably Israel Pemberton, were to 
fall victims to the invaders; at least James Pem- 
berton was called out of meeting on the 5th and 
so informed, and such was the general belief. It 
is hardly to be wondered at that many of the 
younger Friends, and some of the older, should 
have armed themselves, with other citizens, to 
defend their wards in the barracks and their 
venerable elders in their homes. In the hot 
pamphlet war which followed much was made of 
the insincerity of the Quakers in their testi- 
mony against war, and it was felt by the meet- 
ings that a serious inroad had been made into 
the disciplinary bulwarks of their faith. 


James Pemberton writes, Third month ‘7th, 
1764: 


Although the minds of many Friends were, I believe, pre- 
served in a state of calmness, and our Quarterly Meeting 
was held to satisfaction, yet it was a matter of sorrowful 
observation to behold many under our name (it is supposed 
about two hundred) acting so contrary to the ancient and 
well-grounded principle of our profession, the testimony 
whereof suffered greatly on this occasion, and furnished our 


The Paxton Riot. 49 


adversaries with a subject of rejoicing who will make no 
allowance in our favor for the instability of youth, they 
who take up arms being mostly such who could scarcely be 
expected to stand firm to the testimony upon a time of so 
sudden and uncommon a trial, or such who do not make 
much profession. It must be acknowledged there is weak- 
ness subsisting on many accounts amongst us. I wish this 
probation may have a tendency to unite and increase the 
strength of those who are engaged for the honor of truth, 
that they may become instruments afresh qualified for the 
help of the weak by example and precept. One circum- 
stance I must not omit, in regard to the use of the meeting 
house which may be liable to be misrepresented: On the 
second day of the inhabitants’ mustering a heavy rain came 
on about ten o’clock, to which being exposed, some of them, 
not of our Society, requested liberty to take shelter in the 
meeting [house], which on consultation with some Friends 
was allowed, and it would have appeared an act of un- 
kindness to refuse it, as it faces the court house and market 
place, which were likewise filled by other companies, and 
it had before been agreed, for avoiding the noise, to hold 
the youth’s meeting of that day at one of the other houses. 


There was unquestionably a considerable sen- 
timent, led by James Logan in the previous gen- 
eration, and cropping out in the association of 
Free Quakers in the next, which made a 
distinction between defensive and offensive war, 
and, loyal in other respects to Quaker thought 
and policy, justified war in protection of worthy 
causes. There was without doubt a number of 
those who took up arms against the Paxton riot- 
ers who were simply youths, carried away by the 
excitement of the time and the natural sense of 


50 Quakers in the Revolution. 


indignation against murderers and rebels, who 
gave but little thought to the ethical questions 
involved. Many of these afterwards reconsid- 
ered their position. The Edward Penington 
who led the Quaker company in 1764 was a dif- 
ferent man from the Edward Penington who 
was banished to Virginia in 1777. But, as the 
following events showed, there were probably 
not a few who justified their action through all 
the disciplinary proceedings which the meeting 
now entered upon. 

The monthly meeting of Third month 30th 
adopted the following minute: 


The meeting taking under consideration the conduct of 
some members of our religious Society in the time of the 
late commotion in the city, and being desirous of admin- 
istering suitable advice for the convincement of those who 
deviated from our ancient testimony in taking up arms on 
that occasion, of the inconsistency of their conduct in that 
respect, in consequence of the request of the Overseers for 
assistance in a Christian labor with such, appoints 
. .. [eleven names]... to confer with the Overseers, and 
proceed in the service of visiting the youth or others on 
that account, in such manner as on consideration they may 
judge most likely to answer the intent of such brotherly 
endeavors. 


| Three months later the Committee reported 
that “upon the whole they have met with a fa- 
vorable reception from most of those who have 
deviated from: our religious testimony, ... 


The Paxton Riot. 51 


though some appear rather in a disposition to 
vindicate their conduct.” The Committee was 
continued. 

The next month they are rather more ex- 
plicit, but are again continued. 


We have in the strength and wisdom afforded us gen- 
erally gone through that service, and endeavored to con- 
vince them of the inconsistency of their conduct with our 
religious profession, most of whom acknowledge they have 
acted contrary thereto, and some appear in a good measure 
convinced of their error in that case; and a few acknowl- 
edge they felt convictions for their so acting at that time, 
and some vindicate their conduct therein. 

And a religious exercise hath attended many of our 
minds in the course of the service, on considering the 
manifest breach they have made and the necessity there 
is of maintaining our peaceable testimony against all wars 
and fightings, together with the different circumstances of 
those whom we have visited, many of whom were in their 
minority and appeared much unacquainted with the 
grounds of Friends’ testimony herein. 

Laid over for consideration. 


The next month the meeting concludes: 


After some time spent in consideration of the re- 
port of the Committee respecting their visit to such who, 
by bearing of arms in Second month last, deviated from our 
ancient testimony, and the sentiment of Friends expressed 
thereon, and great tenderness and compassion appearing 
towards them under their different circumstances, it is 
recommended to the said Committee to repeat their visit 
to the several delinquents, and to administer such further 
admonition as may occur to them to be necessary; and 
where they find any plead the rectitude of their sentiments 
and persist to vindicate their conduct in opposition to our 


52 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Christian testimony, and labor is rejected or not likely 
to avail to convince them of their error, to produce 
their names to the meeting, in order that such further 
measures may be taken as the honor of the testimony of 
Truth requires, and to inform them in general of the 
concern with which the Meeting is affected on their 
account, and the earnest desire for their restoration, and 
that they may experience future stability and watchfulness 
wherein the preservation of us all depends, and the said 
Committee, on performing this service, are desired to make 
report of their proceedings. 


The results of the Committee’s labors began 
to manifest themselves in individual acknowledg- 
ments of error and consequent restoration to 
favor.* The names, however, were not reported 
by the Committee. 

Again, in Second month, 1765, the Committee 
report, classifying the offenders. Thirty-two of 
them were under age, have been carefully in- 


*— —— attended this Meeting with a paper expressing 
sorrow for his taking up arms in Second month last, and 
that it proceeded from the hurry and commotion which 
then attended and prevented sufficient time for reflection 
or opportunity of consulting with Friends on the occasion, 
and that the call of the magistracy for the suppression of 
a riot, which threatened murder to innocent persons and 
general disturbance to the city, prevailed with him at 
that time to join in a military appearance, but on serious 
deliberation he finds his conduct was wrong, and that all 
wars and fightings are antichristian, which being read, and 
favorable accounts being given by the Friends who have 
visited him of his disposition of mind, there is ground to 
hope what he offers proceeds from a motive of sincerity. 


The Paxton Riot. 53 


structed, and their case may now be considered 
closed. Of the others a number acknowledge 
their mistake; a second company are “ jealous of 
the Quaker profession, but do not yet see their 
inconsistency”; while a third “wholly justify de- 
fensive war, in opposition to our religious So- 
ciety.” 

In Fourth month the meeting advised them to 
drop the cases of those who seem repentant, 
and again directs the names brought forward of 
those “ who contend against our peaceable testi- 
mony.” This is not done, however, and the 
“labour” goes on from month to month, and 
other Friends from Philadelphia and elsewhere 
are added to the Committee. 

In Fourth month, 1766, the meeting again 
suggests bringing in the names of the refractory, 
but it is not done. So the matter goes on, each 
month bringing a new report, till Fifth month, 
1767, when the Committee finally reports that 
some are still unconvinced, yet they express a 
willingness and hope to be more guarded and 
circumspect in the future, so it is concluded not 
to send in any names. The meeting hopes 
that Friends will still labor “ at every seasonable 
opportunity,” and finally discharges the Com- 
mittee. No one is “disowned,” but the three 


54 Quakers in the Revolution. 


and one-quarter years of quiet and loving per- 
sonal intercourse between the participants and a 
large and influential Committee doubtless had 
its great effect in strengthening the position of 
the meeting, though there are frequent evidences 
that there was then considerable discord among 
Friends. 

Samuel Wetherill, writing shortly after, says 
that during the disturbance “ Not an individual 
in the Society appeared to discountenance the 
thing,” and adds: 


There were divers conferences held on the subject, in 
which the members of the Society were divided in opinion; 
some thought they should proceed as the discipline directs, 
which requires an acknowledgement for such conduct, or 
that the Society should bear a testimony against the 
violators of the rule. But there were other persons, men 
of virtue or superior understanding, who could not proceed 
to condemn men for doing that which at the time of trial 
was generally approbated. These Friends prevailed over 
the others, and the business ended; had the sentiments 
of the other Friends prevailed the Society would have 
merited the highest reproach. 


This was written after the author had taken, 
during the Revolutionary War, decided grounds 
in favor of the armed support of the American 
cause. 

The whole question is important, because it 
had considerable influence in formulating views 


The Paxton Riot. 55 


for and against the propriety of Friends joining 
the independence forces a dozen years later. 

If ever war could be advocated, or even palli- 
ated, here was a case. Defenceless Indians and 
worthy citizens were to be slaughtered by a body 
of border rangers who had shown their temper 
at Conestoga and Lancaster. The laws of the 
land were defied, and the constituted authorities 
called for aid. It might be considered simply as 
doing police duty to stand between the rioters 
and their victims; and after all, no one was hurt, 
and only a show of force was necessary. 

Yet to the Quaker mind of the time it meant 
war, and not police duty. The distinction be- 
tween the two was pretty well threshed out in 
the controversy between the Assembly and Gov- 
ernor Thomas, in 1740-42. Had a continued re- 
sistance been made, there would have been 
drilling and fighting, murder and devastation, 
hatred and vindictive feeling; and these men, 
who had so enthusiastically rushed to arms, 
would have been soldiers and not policemen. 

There is usually—at least on one side, and 
often on both—an excellent excuse; and if the 
Quakers had any special testimony against war 
in itself it was necessary to maintain it even 
when the right was manifestly with them, as in 


56 Quakers in the Revolution. 


this case. To them war was not wrong because it 
was inexpedient or the occasion insufficient, but 
because it involved the killing of innocent as 
well as guilty; stealing from non-combatants as 
well as the enemy; lying and deception, and the 
reverse of all the precepts of the Sermon on the 
Mount. Because the Quaker believed in the 
Christianity of Christ, and was willing to follow 
it even against the dictates of seeming necessity, 
he must condemn war and the warlike spirit even 
when every consideration of right was on his 
side. And so while these grave Committeemen 
may have felt much secret sympathy with their 
sons and younger members, for whom they 
opened the meeting-house in the February rain- 
storm, they saw also pretty clearly that the vital- 
ity of their testimony to peace depended on their 
winning back their erring youth, and setting 
themselves right before a very critical body of 
fellow-citizens. 

The Yearly Meeting took up the question in 
the autumn of 1764. Evidently it was an ex- 
citing subject, and all the solemnity of such a 
meeting was necessary to a grave and quiet con- 
sideration of its various phases. We have no 
record of the discussion, but the minutes simply 


The Paxton Riot. 57 


call for a general support of the Monthly Meet- 
ing in dealing with the offenders. 


After a solid and weighty deliberation on the affecting 
occasion mentioned in the report from Philadelphia 
Quarter in respect to the deviation from our ancient 
peaceable testimony manifested by the conduct of several 
members of our religious Society in the time of the hurry 
and commotion which happened in that city in the Second 
month last, and a fervent concern at this time prevailing 
for the support of our Christian testimony in all its 
branches and for the restoration of those who have erred 
therefrom; in order for a more full and close considera- 
tion of what is incumbent on this Meeting to do on this 
occasion, it is recommended to Friends to labor to con- 
tinue under the calming influence with which this sitting 
has been attended, that in the further deliberation on this 
subject the Meeting may be able to come to such result 
thereon as the honor of Truth at this time requires. 


In a long letter to their London brethren, 
written within three weeks of the excitement, 
the Meeting for Sufferings details the Indian 
massacres and the events in Germantown and 
Philadelphia, and concludes: 


During these tumults a few members of our Society were 
hurried, under the apprehension of immediate danger, to 
appear in arms, contrary to our religious profession and 
principles, whose example was followed by some of our 
youth, which hath been and is a subject of real concern 
to those who experienced in this time of trial the calming 
influence of that spirit which preserves in a steady de- 
pendence on the alone protection of Divine Providence, and 
we hope endeavours will be extended by those in the 
meekness of true wisdom, for the help and restoration of 
those who have thus erred. 


58 Quakers in the Revolution. 


When we consider the ferments which were then excited 
and prevailed, and the members suddenly brought together 
from different places in this state of mind, we have abund- 
ant cause with deep and reverent thankfulness to acknowl- 
edge and remember the merciful interposition of Divine 
Favour extended towards us, that thro’ these commotions 
no lives were lost, nor personal injury done to any that 
we have heard of, and that the mischiefs which seemed for 
some time inevitable are for the present at least averted. 

This day of probation happened on the day appointed 
for holding the Quarterly Meeting of this city and county, 
which nevertheless was attended by a large number of 
Friends, and we believe was a time of confirmation and 
comfort to many. 

With desires that we may be preserved through these 
difficulties in faith and patience to the honor of our Holy 
Profession, and in much brotherly love, we salute you, and 
remain, 

Your loving Fr’ds & Brethren. 


. The general sentiment was probably expressed 
in the following extract from a private letter of 
an English Friend of the time: 


It was very affecting to find that so many under our name 
departed in such a sorrowful manner from our Christian 
principles as to take up arms. To be sure it was a very 
singular and extraordinary case, it being to oppose the 
progress of horrid murderers; the view of this, together 
with the suddenness of their being surprised and many of 
them exampled into it, ought to be considered; yet it is 
of very great importance to the whole Society that our 
truly Christian testimony to the government of the Prince 
of Peace, and against all wars and fightings, should be 
maintained inviolate, and I greatly hope and much desire 
Friends on your side may be favored with true judgement 
and real discerning to act properly in so deplorable a case. 


The Paxton Riot. 59 


The papers presented by the frontiersmen 
containing reflections on the Quakers, and the 
whole matter being a subject of public contro- 
versy, it seemed desirable to the Meeting for 
Sufferings to offer a public defense of their con- 
duct in relation to the Indians. This they dia 
in the shape of a letter to Governor Penn, dated 
Second month 25th, 1764. 


To John Penn, Esq., Lieutenant-Governor of the Province 
of Pennsylvania, etc. : 
The Addresses of the people called Quakers in the said 
Province: 
May it please the Governor :— 

We acknowledge thy kind reception of our application 
for copies of the two papers presented to thee by some of 
the frontier inhabitants on the sixth and thirteenth 
instant, which we have perused and considered, and find 
several parts thereof are evidently intended to render us 
odious to our superiors and to keep up a tumultuous spirit 
among the inconsiderate part of the people. We therefore 
request thy favorable attention to some observations which 
we apprehend necessary to offer, to assert our innocence 
of the false charges and unjust insinuations thus invidiously 
propagated against us. 

Our religious Society hath been well known through the 
British dominions above an hundred years, and was never 
concerned in promoting or countenancing any plots or in- 
surrections against the Government, but, on the contrary 
when ambitious men, thirsting for power, have embroiled 
the state in intestine commotions and bloodshed, subvert- 
ing the order of Government, our forefathers, by their pub- 
lick declarations and peaceable conduct manifested their 
abhorrence of such traitorous proceedings. Notwithstand- 


60 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ing they were subjected to gross abuses in their char- 
acters and persons, and cruel imprisonments, persecutions 
and some of them the loss of their lives, through the in- 
stigation of wicked and unreasonable men, they steadily 
maintained their profession and acted agreeable to the 
principles of the true Disciples of Christ. By their 
innocent, peaceable conduct having approved themselves 
faithful and loyal subjects, they obtained the favour of the 
Government and were by royal authority entrusted with 
many valuable rights and privileges to be enjoyed by them 
and their successors with the property they purchased in 
the soil of this Province, which induced them to remove 
from their native land with some of their neighbors of 
other religious societies, and at their own expense, without 
any charge to the public, to encounter the difficulties of 
improving a wilderness in which the blessings of Divine 
Providence attended their endeavours beyond all human 
expectation. From the first settling of the Province till 
within a few years past both the framing and the admin- 
istration of the laws were committed chiefly to men of our 
religious principles, under whom tranquility and peace 
were preserved among the inhabitants and with the 
natives, the land rejoiced, and the people of every denom- 
ination were protected in person and property and in the 
full enjoyment of religious and civil liberty; but with grief 
and sorrow of some years past we have observed the cir- 
cumstances of the Province to be much changed, and that 
intestine animosities and the desolating calamities of man 
have taken the place of tranquility and peace. 

We have as a religious Society ever carefully avoided 
admitting matters immediately relating to civil government 
into our deliberations further than to excite and engage 
each other to demean ourselves as dutiful subjects to the 
King, with due respect to those in authority under him, 
and to live agreeably to the religious principles we profess 
and to the uniform example of our ancestors, and to this 
end Meetings were instituted and are still maintained in 
which our care and concern are manifested to preserve 


The Paxton Riot. 61 


that discipline and good order among us which tend only 
to the promotion of piety and virtue. 

Yet, as members of civil society, services sometimes 
occur which we do not judge expedient to become the sub- 
ject of the consideration of our religious meetings, and of 
this nature is the association formed by a number of 
persons in religious profession with us, of which on this 
occasion it seems incumbent on us to give some account 
to the Governor, as their conduct is misrepresented in 
order to calumniate and reproach us as a religious Society, 
by the insinuations and slanders in the papers sent to the 
Governor, and particularly in the unsigned declaration on 
behalf of a number of armed men on the sixth instant, 
when approaching the city from distant parts of the 
Province to the disturbance of the public peace. 

In the spring of the year 1756, the distress of the Proy- 
ince being very great and the desolating calamities of a 
general Indian war apprehended, at the instance of the 
Provincial Interpreter, Conrad Weiser, and with the appro- 
bation of Governor Morris, some members of our Society 
essayed to promote a reconciliation with the Indians. 
Their endeavors being blessed with success, the happy 
effects thereof were soon manifest and a real concern for 
the then deplorable situation of our fellow-subjects on the 
frontiers prevailing, in order that they might be capable 
of rendering some effectual service they freely contributed 
considerable sums of money and engaged others in like 
manner to contribute, so that about 5,000 pounds was 
raised in order to be employed for the service of the 
public. The chief part thereof hath been since expended 
in presents given at the public treaties (when they were 
sometimes delivered by the Governors of this Province, and 
at other times with their privity and permission) for pro- 
moting the salutary measures of gaining and confirming 
peace with the Indians and procuring the release of our 
countrymen in captivity, and thereby a considerable num- 
ber have been restored to their friends. We find that 
the measures thus pursued being made known to the King’s 
Generals, who from time to time were here, and having 


62 Quakers in the Revolution. 


been communicated by an address sent to the Proprietaries 
of this Province in England, appear, by their written 
answers and other testimonials, to have received their 
countenance and approbation. This being the case and the 
conduct of those concerned in these affairs evidently con- 
trary to the intent and tendency of the assertion contained 
in the said unsigned declaration, pretended to be founded 
on the records of the county of Berks, we do not appre- 
hend it necessary to say any more thereon than that we 
are (after proper enquiry) assured that nothing of that 
kind is to be found on those records, and that the private 
minute made by Conrad Weiser of a report he had re- 
ceived from two Indians of a story they had heard from 
another Indian pretending to be a messenger from the 
Ohio, does not mention any person whatever nor contain 
the charges expressed in the declaration. From the 
enquiry we have made we find them groundless and unjust 
and uttered with a view to amuse and inflame the 
credulous to vilify and calumniate us. 

The insidious reflection against a sect, ‘that have 
got the political reins in their hands and tamely tyrannize 
over the good people of this Province,” though evidently 
levelled against us, manifests the authors of these papers 
are egregiously ignorant of our conduct or wilfully bent 
on misrepresenting us, it being known that as a religious 
body we have by public advices and private admonition 
labored with and earnestly desired our brethren who have 
been elected or appointed to public offices in the Govern- 
ment for some years past to decline taking upon them a 
task so arduous under our late and present circum- 
stances. That many have concurred with us in this 
resolution is evident by divers having voluntarily re- 
signed their seats in the House of Assembly, and by others 
having by public advertisements signified their declining 
the service and requesting their countrymen to choose 
others in their places, and by many having refused to 
accept of places in the executive part of the Government. 
We are not conscious that as Englishmen and dutiful 
subjects we have ever forfeited our right of electing or 


The Paxton Riot. 63 


being elected; but because we could serve no longer in 
those stations with satisfaction to ourselves, many of us 
have chosen to forbear the exercise of these rights. 

The accusation of our having been profuse to savages 
and carefully avoiding to contribute to the relief and 
support of the distressed families on the frontiers who 
have abandoned their possessions and fled for their lives, 
is equally invidious and mistaken. We very early and 
expeditiously promoted a subscription and contributed to 
the relief of the distresses of those who were plundered 
and fled from their habitations in the beginning of the 
Indian war, which was distributed among them in pro- 
visions and clothing and afforded a seasonable relief. 
Divers among us in the city of Philadelphia also contri- 
buted with others the last summer, and we are well assured 
that money was raised and sent up by the members of 
our Society in different parts of the country, and as soon 
as we were informed that the greatest part of what had 
been voluntarily raised by the citizens of Philadelphia was 
nearly expended, a subscription was set on foot to which 
several very generously contributed and a large sum might 
soon have been raised and was stopped only on account 
of the tumult which hath lately happened. It hath 
been from our regard to our fellow-subjects on the 
frontiers and sympathy with their afflicting distresses, and 
a concern for the general welfare of the Province, that 
engaged our brethren to raise the money they applied 
to promote a pacifycation with the Natives and no separate 
views of interest to ourselves; but thus unhappily our most 
upright and disinterested intentions are misconstrued and 
perverted to impose on the weak and answer the perni- 
cious schemes of the enemies of peace. 


* * * * * * * * * 


64 Quakers in the Revolution. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE CONTEST WITH THE PROPRIETORS. 


The departure of the Paxton Rioters left mat- 
ters in a strained position in Philadelphia. 
While no considerable portion of the people 
dared openly to sympathize with them, it was 
the general belief that secretly many were hop- 
ing that a change of political ascendaney would 
be the result of the movement. A flood of eriti- 
cism and abuse was launched at Benjamin 
Franklin and the Quakers, and for a few years 
there was a close political alliance between these 
rather discordant elements. Franklin was de- 
feated for the Assembly this fall by a majority 
of twenty-five for his opponent in a vote of four 
thousand; and against the bitterest opposition of 
the Proprietary party, which hoped he was now 
permanently retired, he was sent to England 
to secure the transfer of the power to appoint 
Governors from the Proprietors to the King. 

James Pemberton writes to Dr. Fothergill: 


Dear Friend : Phila., 10th mo. 11, 1764. 


I wrote to thee last on the third and fifth ults., when I 
gave some account of the great industry here using by 


The Contest With the Proprietors. 65 


our proprietary politicians against the day of election which 
is now passed, and they have so far succeeded in their 
unwearied endeavors of calumniating Benj. Franklin as to 
prejudice the minds of the lower classes of the people 
against him, by which, together with scandalous artifices, 
by a very smail majority he is excluded from a seat in the 
present House of Assembly. 

Altho’ they have fallen short of their intended scheme, 
a great majority of the old members being again returned, 
yet they exult on this occasion, their enmity having been 
of late principally vented upon him, knowing his great 
abilities and long experience in public affairs render him 
the most formidable opponent to their ambitious schemes. 
Meee It is not unlikely some of the chief of his enemies 
may be prompted to proceed as much further as their in- 
fluence may extend to injure him in character and interest 
on your side by representing this occurrence an instance 
of his loss of favor with the people here in general; but 
that is far from being the case. They who know him are 
well assured of his integrity and retain a proper sense of 
his past services. No man in this Province has been so 
instrumental in promoting the public good; the most useful 
institutions we have among us may be attributed in great 
measure to his great understanding and disinterested regard 
for the benefit of this Province. I have had some oppor- 
tunity of observing his conduct in public consultations, and 
although have necessarily been obliged to dissent from him 
in sentiment on some occasions, yet am well persuaded 
he acted upon motives justifyable to himself and a spirit 
of patriotism free from views mercenary or self-interested. 


Matters were in a curious condition in 1764. 
There was a great attack by the opposition on 
the Quakers for managing the Province and con- 
trolling its politics. The Quaker meetings were 
at the same time using their utmost endeavors to 
prevent their members being chosen by large 


66 Quakers in the Revolution. 


popular majorities to any elective positions. This 
year, by strenuous efforts, they kept their mem- 
bership in the Assembly down to sixteen, but 
the others that were elected, while not members 
of the Society, were very much in harmony with 
it on all political questions except the one ques- 
tion of military defence. 

John Penn had been cordially received a year 
before as likely to be freer in his actions than the 
preceding Governors, and consequently more 
open to encourage movements which would unite 
the conflicting parties. Either from necessity 
or choice he followed another policy, and was in 
continual opposition to the popular will. The 
people finally became tired, and concluded to 
give up the attempt to secure their privileges by 
harmonious agreement with the Proprietors. 
By a large majority in the Assembly they 
adopted a resolution requesting the king to take 
the government to himself. Franklin was sent 
abroad to conduct the negotiation. Petitions 
went around for signature and were signed 
by most Friends. James Pemberton writes to 
Samuel Fothergill: 


There hath been a long contest between our Assembly 
and the Governor in relation to a Supply Bill this winter, 
and as they attribute the occasion of their difficulties to 
Proprietary views of encroaching on the liberties of the 


The Contest With the Proprietors. 67 


people, they formed several resolves protesting against the 
same, and adjourned in Third month last in order to con- 
sult their constituents about applying to the King to take 
this government under his immediate care and protection; 
in consequence of which petitions to this purpose have 
been handed about and signed by a great number of the 
inhabitants, and as I have been informed pretty generally 
by the members of our religious Society. To this they have 
been induced from various considerations, on one hand 
being tired with the repeated disputations between the Pro- 
prietors and the Assembly, and on the other the riotous 
conduct of the Presbyterians and their fearful apprehen- 
sions of their getting the legislative as well as the execu- 
tive part of government into their hands. 


Upon second thought there came doubts into 
the minds of many Friends whether after all it 
would be wise to run the risks attending the life 
of a Crown Colony. It would mean, in the first 
place, the loss of their venerable charter of 1701, 
under which they had so signally prospered, and 
which had been the object of so many enco- 
miums. 

The Meeting for Sufferings, as the representa- 
tives of Friends, began to investigate the proba- 
ble condition of their religious rights under the 
Crown. The prospect of an established Episco- 
pal Church was only one grade if any better 
than the Presbyterian rule. They deputed a 
committee to interview the Speaker of the As- 
sembly. By this time this body was becoming 
perhaps a little doubtful of its wisdom in press- 


68 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ing the change, though it had gone too far to 


draw back. 

Two of the Committee appointed to apply to the speaker 
of Assembly of Pensilvania for information respecting their 
late proceedings, in the application they have made for a 
change of government, report that they were received 
kindly by him, and informed that directions were given 
to their agent to proceed cautiously in the matter, and 
if there appeared any danger of not retaining the religious 
and civil privileges the inhabitants now enjoy, to decline 
presenting the petition until he received further instruc- 
tions from the Assembly, but that there appeared no likeli- 
hood of anything being done before the session of Parlia- 
ment next winter. 


One can sympathize with the desire of the 
people to be free from a system which gave to 
non-residents, whose pecuniary interests were 
not always identical with the civil interests of 
the people, the power to appoint and control the 
influential position of Lieutenant-Governor. On 
the other hand, the Friends were hardly pre- 
pared to sink into the political insignificance and 
precarious religious freedom of their English 
fellow-members. The Yearly Meeting, in which 
the drift evidently was towards entire non-par- 
ticipation in political affairs, advised that “ this 
meeting doth not find freedom to join therewith 
[in the movement to dispossess the Proprietors], 
believing it to be most expedient for us in this 


The Contest With the Proprietors. 69 


time of probation as much as may be to be still 
and quiet.” 

If, however, the movement is to prevail, they 
desire their influential friends in London to see 
that their rights are protected, and the Meeting 
for Sufferings writes: 


Matters appearing now to be advancing nearer to a crisis 
than heretofore, we think it necessary to acquaint you that 
the Assembly have lately addressed the King to take the 
government of this Province into his own hands and there- 
with have forwarded to London divers petitions to the 
same effect signed by many of the inhabitants, with in- 
structions to their agent to proceed with prudence and 
caution in so important a matter. 

This measure has not become a subject of deliberation 
in any of our meetings until now, when we find that many 
of our brethren have previously signed these petitions, 
and many others have not been free to do it. 

After consideration of an affair of so great importance, 
the event of which being uncertain and unforeseen how 
nearly we may be affected thereby, we think it most advisa- 
ble and safest for us to decline appearing in support 
thereof, nor do we choose to interfere further than our duty 
and interest appear to require, that in case this measure is 
likely to be carried into execution, to request and desire 
the continuance of your brotherly care and attention, to 
interpose with your influence, and as there may be occa- 
sion to represent our circumstances in such manner as you 
may judge most conducive for the preservation of those in- 
estimable privileges which our ancestors obtained for them- 
selves and successors, and which were a principal induce- 
ment to their removal from their native land, to encounter 
the danger, toil, and expense of improving a wilderness 
wherein their honest endeavors have been so signally 
blessed by Divine Providence, that the Province has en- 
gaged the admiration of strangers, and has been a retreat 


70 Quakers in the Revolution. 


to many, from the oppression and arbitrary power of 
foreign princes, whereby a great addition is made to the 
number of British-American subjects, nor are we conscious 
that by any conduct of ours we have forfeited our right 
to the enjoyment of them.” 


In a future letter they convey £100 “ towards 
defraying such expenses as you may be subject 
to on account of any application on our behalf, 
to prevent our being deprived of our religious 
liberties.” 

Israel Pemberton gives his views on the sub- 
ject in a letter to David Barclay on the 6th of 
Eleventh month, 1764. 


Thou hast some years since had my sentiments of the lead- 
ers of the parties and their measures, and I wish I could 
on further experience think more favorably of most of 
them. The Proprietors have certainly been very unhappy 
in forming a wrong judgement of their real friends, and in 
rejecting the reasonable proposals of contributing toward 
the expense of cultivating friendship with the Indians be- 
fore any rupture with them, and since, in contending first 
for an exemption from paying their proportion of the pub- 
lic taxes, and afterwards for the tax being laid on their 
estate in an unequal manner. Notwithstanding, the dis- 
position of people of all denominations to renew a good 
understanding with their family was very evident on our 
present governor’s arrival, and it would then have been in 
his power (if his disposition and capacity had concurred) to 
improve the opportunity of putting an end to all those 
controversies, but either through his weakness or the ad- 
vice of evil counsellors, or both, this was omitted, and con- 
trary measures pursued. The smallness of the Proprie- 
taries’ quotas toward the public taxes evinced that the 
mode of assessing was much in their favor, yet as soon as 


The Contest With the Proprietors. 71 


new supplies were called for the fatal resolution again ap- 
peared of screening their estate from sharing an equal part 
of the burden. This, added to the resentment raised by 
omitting and evading a due inquiry into the conduct of the 
authors and perpetrators of the late inhuman massacres, 
and conniving at the continuance of their further wicked 
attempts, embittered the minds of people in general, and 
rendered the government so contemptible that all hope 
seemed to be lost of any alteration for the better, but by 
its being taken out of the hands of the Proprietaries. 
Those who had long wished for it were so industrious in 
laying hold of the occasion that while the ferment lasted 
numbers were drawn in to sign petitions to the king to take 
the government into his own hands, with whom many 
friends of this city were so imprudent as to join, and those 
who kept out of the snare had not time and strength suf- 
ficient to prevent others from being taken in. The exer- 
cise and close trial this brought on many friends hath been, 
and is, very great; yet it hath afforded a full opportunity 
to the Proprietaries and their agents to see that there are 
some of us whom no resentment of the most injurious treat- 
ment could sway to retaliate by joining in these measures. 
A redress of grievances was so necessary that we could 
not blame those who from the duty of their station sought 
it, but in doing it to endanger the loss of those liberties 
and privileges by which we had been distinguished ap- 
peared to us imprudent. 
* * * * * * * x» * 

We expected the advice and conduct of Isaac Norris, who 
had many years been speaker of our assembly, would have 
had some effect, but in this we were also disappointed. 
Last summer, being in a weak state of body, and tired out 
with the tedious controversies with the governor, when he 
found the assembly in general determined in pursuing those 
measures, which he apprehended it unsafe to be accessory 
to, he chose to resign his seat. Some change being this year 
made in the assembly, and his state of health much re- 
covered, as it was said the governor had instructions to 
make some concessions, he entertained hopes of promoting 


72 Quakers in the Revolution. 


a reconciliation, and restraining from precipitate measures. 
He then was induced to consent to accept of the speaker’s 
seat again, but when he found the governor declined com- 
municating anything toward a reconciliation, and that the 
majority of the present assembly were bent on pursuing 
the measures he had before disapproved, after giving the 
house his sentiments thereon, he again resigned his seat, 
and retired home heartily concerned for the unhappy cir- 
cumstances of his country, which he could neither redress 
nor prevent, his salutary advice being rejected with con- 
tempt by those who formerly revered it. 

Thus Benjamin Franklin is again employed on another 
negotiation. It is alleged by those who have urged it most 
that his knowledge and interest will do great service to the 
colonies by obtaining some alleviation of those inconyeni- 
ences we are subjected to by some late acts of parliament, 
and the prevention of others with which we are threatened. 

Nothing, I think, should be omitted which can be done 
to prevent Richard Jackson (the other agent), being misled 
by a notion that the prosecution of these measures is agree- 
able to the people of the Province in general, for tho’ 
the dissatisfaction of the people with the conduct of the 
Proprietary agents is very general, yet the desire of pre- 
serving our constitution on its original basis is so deeply 
fixed that they would rather submit a little longer to these 
inconveniences, still being in hopes of redress; and they will 
not think those, their friends, who at this juncture risk 
the loss of it; and it was owing to a confidence in the ma- 
jority of the present assembly having more deliberation on 
this important subject that numbers were induced to de- 
cline pushing for a greater change than was made, and 
many of us omitted voting, as we have done for several 
years past; it is ten years since I voted at all. 

The aversion the Proprietaries and Franklin have to each 
other I am sensible will render the measures necessary 
for an amicable accommodation—difficult, yet, I hope, not 
impracticable, by the united assistance of such friends who 
may have some interest with them, if such who can influ- 
ence the agent could prevail with them in a proper man- 


4 
“NOILOTOAGDH WHHL WALA V 


AUINIAOO SING NI NUHM ‘UAONQOA AHL AO NOSGNVUD ‘NNAd NHOL Ad GUIANNNO GNV Wind 


‘MUVd LNOOWAIVA ‘NAGUVD TVOIDOTOOZ NI . ACOLIIOS AML, 


The Contest With the Proprietors. 73 


ner to make such proposals as they think reasonable, and 
those, with such other friends as have weight with the 
Proprietaries, would engage them favorably to receive and 
calmly to consider what they may offer, and seriously to 
reflect on the importance of this crisis, by which the con- 
nection between them and the people seems likely to be de- 
termined. 


When Franklin reached England, in Decem- 
ber, 1764, he found no encouragement in the 
special mission to which he had been deputed, 
but much to do to protect his province and other 
provinces from the encroachments of King and 
Parliament. The movement that sent him was 
rather short-sighted and impulsive, and both he 
and his constituents were soon willing to cease 
to press it. Its main advantage was to secure 
at the English court an unrivaled diplomat to 
look after his country’s interest in the trying 
pre-revolutionary days. 

In a letter under date of April 22d, 1765, 
Israel Pemberton says: “ Franklin has never 
presented his petition for change of government, 
and writes little about it.” Richard Jackson, in 
a letter to the Speaker, says: “Dr. Fother- 
gill and Mr. Brown have had several conferences 
with Mr. Penn, which will, I hope, have good 
consequences, but the attention to matters of 
general concern at present engage all our care 


74 Quakers in the Revolution. 


and vigilance so much that we do not think it 
prudent to do anything relative to the particu- 
lar affairs of the Province.” 


Preparing for the Revolution. 75 


CHAPTER V. 


PREPARING FOR THE REVOLUTION. 


The series of events which immediately pre- 
cipitated the Revolution began about the year 
1764. The English Government felt that the 
losses incurred by the protection of colonial 
frontiers and expenses of colonial management 
justified an attempt to replenish the national 
treasury by colonial taxes. With the American 
opposition to this claim the Pennsylvania Qua- 
kers sympathized, and yet their opposition was 
tempered by their traditional attitude of obedi- 
ence to the constituted government. 

Being the leading merchants of Philadelphia, 
the Navigation Acts, limiting their trade to Eng- 
lish countries and by English ships, were a great 
blow to their prosperity, yet they did not, nor 
did others, seriously protest. The prohibition of 
the exportation and manufacture of certain arti- 
cles was also submitted to as properly within the 
range of English control. They would have 
nothing to do with smuggling, even objecting to 
their members purchasing goods so imported. 

“ Are Friends careful not to defraud the King 


76 Quakers in the Revolution. 


of his dues?’ was regularly queried in every 
Monthly Meeting, and a negative answer 
brought down the disfavor of the church upon 
the offending parties. The early years of Eng- 
lish suffering, with the triumphant result of 
privileges gained by passive resistance to ob- 
jectionable laws and active obedience to others, 
had not been forgotten. The ruling spirit, de- 
veloped by almost a century of control, had 
made the Pennsylvania Friends more militant 
than their forefathers, but in their most repre- 
sentative members was the same deeply-rooted 
idea of obedience to every law which did not 
touch their consciences. They had none of the 
qualities of revolutionists. 

When in 1765, the Stamp Act was passed, 
Philadelphia vigorously entered into the move- 
ment against its enforeement. She drove away 
the officers, and agreed to absolute non-importa- 
tion of British goods as most likely to bring the 
home government to terms. Franklin, from 
England, counselled submission, but his voice 
was not heeded in the outbreak. 

Many Friends were in the movement. The 
names of over fifty of them were on the non-im- 
portation agreement, including Israel and James 
Pemberton, and other prominent members in the 


Preparing for the Revolution. at 


meeting. There they naturally belonged. For 
nearly a century they had been supporting the 
cause of liberty against King and Proprietor. 
They held to a large extent the confidence of the 
people, and their merchants were in the best posi- 
tion to take an effective part. Moreover, an 
agreement not to import did not necessarily in- 
volve any disobedience to law, and was quite a 
Quaker method of resistance. So far as this 
was concerned there seems to have been general 
unanimity. 

They thought it necessary to explain to their 
London Friends how far they would go in the 
matter of resistance, and wrote as follows: 


To the Friends of the Meeting for Sufferings in London: 

The general discontent which hath appeared in several 
colonies on the imposition of duties for the purpose of rais- 
ing a revenue, hath sometime past been publickly known, 
and that the people have been uniting by various methods 
to avert the consequences of being thus taxed without 
their own consent. In Pennsylvania so large a number 
of the people are inclined to moderation that the public 
deliberations and measures have been concluded in such 
manner as to evidence our desires to convince our superiors 
of our resolutions to sue for redress in a manner becoming 
our inferior stations; but it was not without much difficulty 
a steady perseverance in these moderate measures was main- 
tained, and when it appeared that the Parliament, in their 
last sessions, were not likely to repeal the laws which oc- 
casioned such discontent here, the earnest importunity 
raised by many in Philadelphia to have some further steps 
taken so far prevailed that many of the merchants and tra- 


78 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ders in this city were induced to enter into an agreement 
not to import most kinds of the English manufactures until 
these laws are repealed. This was thought by many a meas- 
ure which the circumstances of the people rendered neces- 
sary, as they were already too deeply indebted, and that 
by it more frugality and economy might be enforced and 
observed among us. The expediency of the measure being 
generally allowed, the particular terms of the agreement 
were not attended to with so much deliberation as it now 
appears was necessary; and thus numbers subscribed to 
them without considering the force and tendency of some 
of the articles; and a committee being necessary to con- 
duct this business, and many of the parties, having more 
confidence in Friends than in others, nominated some of 
our brethren to be of that committee, and even went so 
far as to name some that were not there nor have since 
entered into their agreement, and some of those Friends 
who consented to it have declared their views to be the 
hope of prevailing by their advice to have such measures 
pursued as would be consistent with the public interest 
without violating the rights of individuals. Some months 
passed before anything occurred to show them the difhi- 
culty they had thus subjected themselves to; but by the 
arrival of a vessel here lately from Yarmouth, laden with 
malt, they have been brought to see and feel it. And the 
apprehensions we have that the conduct of our brethren 
may be misrepresented induces us, after weighty and de- 
liberate consideration, had at several meetings, and enquiry 
into the affair, to acquaint you. It appears that when this 
vessel arrived, and the merchant to whom she was con- 
signed applied to several of the committee for advice re- 
specting the landing of the cargo, they informed him they 
thought he might without offense land it, but in a general 
meeting of the committee such a difficulty ensued that, 
contrary to the opinion of some of the Friends who were 
present, as they have informed us, it was decided to eail 
a meeting of the inhabitants of the city in the State-house; 
at which meeting such resolutions were hastily taken as 
determined the captain to take his cargo from hence to 


Preparing for the Revolution. 79 


Ireland. Our monthly meeting happened before the cap- 
tain sailed, and the Friends who attended it, being deeply 
affected on the consideration of this afflicting case, and 
desirous of preventing if possible the evil consequences of 
it, appointed several of us to confer with our brethren who 
were of that committee, and afterwards to converse with 
the captain and merchant. The Friends of the committee 
appeared fully convinced of the imprudence of thus as- 
suming the authority to call together the people, the greater 
part of whom were incapable of judging prudently on a mat- 
ter of so great importance; and, therefore, they have been 
determined not to be drawn in again to assent to such a 
proposal. Our conference with the captain, we hoped, 
tended in some measure to remove the prejudice he might 
go away with against the people in general, as we assured 
him of the anxiety and pain Friends in general and the 
more considerate and judicious of all denominations were 
under on his account, and as we thought it not impractica- 
ble for him still to land his cargo he so far followed our 
advice as to apply again to the committee of merchants 
who met in pursuance of his desire, but, after receiving 
their answer and consulting with his merchant, he thought 
proper to go from hence with his cargo for Cork in Ire- 
land. There have been several meetings of the committee, 
and a general meeting of the parties to the agreement, at 
which resolutions have been taken which manifest the dan- 
gerous tendency of contributing to the support of such as- 
sociations, and, as some of those Friends who were on the 
committee have declared their disapprobation of these 
measures, and Friends at the monthly meeting of Phila- 
delphia generally united to advise their members wholly 
to withdraw from and keep out of them, we are in hopes 
such further occasion will be avoided as may subject us as 
a religious society to any censure from our superiors, as we 
desire to approve ourselves both in principle and practice 
dutiful, affectionate and loyal subjects to the King, and 
peaceable members of civil society, firmly believing that as 
we live in that love which is graciously shed “ abroad in 
our hearts through Jesus Christ,’ and renewed in us in 


80 Quakers in the Revolution. 


these times of probation, we shall be preserved on the true 
foundation and experience, “‘ all things to work together for . 
our good.” 


To the influence of Friends is doubtless due 
the fact that the remonstrance of Pennsylvania 
was a moderate though firm protest against the 
Stamp Act, unaccompanied by any of the rioting 
which prevailed in most of the other colonies. 
The merchants of Philadelphia united in an ap- 
peal to their fellow merchants of London to use 
their influence to secure its repeal. This atti- 
tude probably counted for more than the frantic 
attacks of New England. Indeed, as Dr. Foth- 
ergill writes, “ Nothing has created so great dif- 
ficulties to your friends or furnished your op- 
ponents with so many arguments against you as 
the tumultuous behavior of too many on your 
side of all ranks. The Parliament saw its 
authority not only rejected, but despised, op- 
posed and insulted. What difficulties has not 
this madness occasioned to all who endeavored 
to serve you?” Men of Anglo-Saxon blood find 
it difficult to retreat from an untenable position 
in the face of bluster, but are often open to fair 
and reasonable expostulation. It may be an in- 
teresting speculation to consider the results 
which would have followed if instead of hot 


Preparing for the Revolution. 81 


words and armed resistance, the encroachments 
of Britain had been met with passive refusal and 
dignified remonstrance. This method is success- 
ful in private life, and better achieves its re- 
sults than brag and threatenings. Perhaps it 
would be so in public affairs also. 

The American people were very determined. 
“Many of the people here and generally in the 
eastern provinces declare they will be content 
with nothing less than a repeal of the Act, or a 
suspension of its execution, and some foolishly 
boast of their ability and determination to oppose 
any force that may be sent to enforce it; to such 
a height of infatuation are they already ad- 
vanced,” writes James Pemberton, then just 
elected to the Assembly by the city of Philadel- 
phia. It was the Presbyterian element which 
most thoroughly sympathized with the spirit of 
New England resistance, and against which Pem- 
berton had carried the election. His success in 
such a trying time was a pledge of the conserva- 
tism of Philadelphia. 

The “Stamp Act Congress,” which met in 
New York just after the passage of the obnox- 
ious measure, issued most able addresses to King 
and Parliament, and a Declaration of Rights. 
None of these suggested disloyalty, and yet ten 


82 Quakers in the Revolution. 


years before the outbreak of hostilities, the vio- 
lent men were threatening forcible resistance 
and growing confident of its success. James 
Pemberton was not exactly satisfied with the do- 
ings of the Congress. “The business of the late 
Congress in New York was not concluded with 
that concord and unanimity which the occasion 
required, and therefore I do not find much de- 
pendence is placed on the issue of their proceed- 
ings.” 

While Friends joined in the non-importation 
movement, the forcible ejectment of the King’s 
officers was too great a stretch of disobedience to 
be encouraged. The responsible members pub- 
licly and privately advised their younger friends 
to keep out of the commotion, and the Yearly 
Meeting thought it a suitable time to revive 
George Fox’s counsel of 1685: 

Whatever bustlings or troubles or tumults or outrages 
should rise in the world keep out of them; but keep in the 
Lord’s power and in the peaceable truth that is over all, 
in which power you seek the peace and good of all men, 
and live in the love which God has shed abroad in your 


hearts through Jesus Christ, in which love nothing is able 
to separate you from God and Christ. 


The resistance of the Americans of all sorts 
prevailed, and the Stamp Act, after a life of 
about a year, was repealed. Pitt thundered 


Preparing for the Revolution. 83 


from his sick bed in the House of Commons, “I 
rejoice America has resisted.” 

The London merchants were strenuous for re- 
peal, fearing not only the temporary destruction 
of their trade, but the industrial independence 
of America, and with a majority of over one 
hundred the Act went down. Great was the re- 
joicing in the colonies. William Pitt was the 
hero of the day, and many a statue was proposed 
in his honor. Even the King enjoyed a little 
brief popularity. 

Dr. Fothergill sent over to James Pemberton 
advance intelligence of the good news. 


By the clemency of the King, the steadiness, ability and 
application of the present ministry, the moderation and hu- 
manity of the House of Commons, I hope the Stamp Act 
is in a fair way to be repealed, your other difficulties re- 
moved, and your commerce restored to a better footing 
than ever. 


Yet he foresaw that the triumph of the Ameri- 
cans would not make for good feeling if they did 
not restrain themselves. 


From the prompt impetuous temper of the Americans 
much is to be feared, unless those amongst them who are 
guided by reason and reflection immediately interpose. 
Demonstrations of joy carried beyond a certain point will 
be most certainly fatal to both countries, and no person 
can better serve them than by repressing them. 

If P[itt] has pleaded your cause most strenuously, don’t 
therefore crown him King of America. If G[eorge] 


84 Quakers in the Revolution. 


G[renville] has opposed you to the utmost stretch of his 
abilities, don’t consign him to be hanged in effigy at every 
town’s end. 


So, forewarned, Pemberton and his friends set 
themselves to work to moderate the expressions 
of joy of the people. The Assembly sent a dig- 
nified declaration of their gratification to the 
King. The exuberance of the popular demon- 
strations of New England and New York was 
very much toned down in Philadelphia, and the 
Assemblyman could write: 


The minds of the people of this Province are greatly set- 
tled, and a favorable prospect offers of a more firm union 
between us and the mother-country than heretofore. Many 
essays were making towards erecting manufactures of dif- 
ferent kinds to which necessity seemed likely to compel. 
The spirit for it abates, and improvements in agriculture 
will take place, being most natural to the genius and situa- 
tion of the inhabitants where the price of labor is so high 
as with us. 


The Quaker method of resistance to the Stamp 
Act embraced quiet and legal opposition, dig- 
nified protest, and moderate expressions of grati- 
fication. 

Three men wrought together most unitedly in 
this matter, and in several similar ones in the ten 
years to come,—Franklin, Fothergill and Pem- 
berton. Franklin was considered by all to be 
extremely judicious and conservative. His sci- 


Preparing for the Revolution. 85 


entific attainments were the wonder of the world; 
his diplomatic skill was unquestioned, and his 
qualities as a municipal and provincial legislator 
were unexcelled by any one since the death of 
Isaac Norris. He was bitterly hated by the 
proprietary party, and everything to his dis- 
eredit was made the most of. It was even re- 
ported that he had betrayed his country, and had 
advised the passage of the Stamp Act. He 
counselled submission, and secured a place as 
collector for a friend, but the charges of dis- 
loyalty are manifestly untrue. 

Pemberton wrote to his English friends, en- 
closing a memorial from “a number of sober and 
religious disposed Germans of the Society called 
Swingfelders,” which appears to have been a tes- 
timony to Franklin’s character, and asking his 
correspondents, Dr. Fothergill and MHenton 
Brown, to give information of Franklin’s assidu- 
ity in serving his constituents. They reply a 
few months later: 

We can safely aver, from our own knowledge as well as 
from the testimony of many persons here of undoubted 
character and reputation, that Benjamin Franklin was so 
far from proposing the stamp-act, or joining with it in 
any manner, that he at all times opposed it, both in word 
and writing, tho’ in vain, as neither his nor any other en- 


deavor could influence the then ministry to relinquish the 
design. 


86 Quakers in the Revolution. 


But if any doubt of his diligence or sincerity in this re- 
spect had remained, the evidence he gave before the House 
of Commons on the occasion of the bill for repealing this 
act was such as to remove every scruple of the kind. For 
the information he gave the House, the distinct, judicious 
and convincing proofs he laid before them of the impro- 
priety of the stamp act, we believe, had considerable in- 
fluence with the Parliament. 

In respect to the commission with which he was charged 
from the Province of Pennsylvania, we can assert of our 
own knowledge that he has endeavored, both by admitting 
friendly mediations and by pursuing more vigorous meas- 
ures when these proved unsuccessful, to discharge his duty 
most uprightly to his constituents. 

And it should rather-be attributed to the singularly un- 
favorable position of affairs both at home and in America, 
than to the want of industry and address, that he has 
not hitherto succeeded in his negotiations. 

We hope this attestation will fully satisfy Dr. Franklin’s 
friends, and enable them to do his character that justice 
which we think his steady attachment to the interests of 
America in general, and of his own province in particular, 
deserves. 


We also find Pemberton in a friendly way ad- 
vising Franklin to write more frequently to the 
Committee on Correspondence of the Assembly, 
even if there is nothing to say, in order to show 
his activity and interest in his commission and 
to stop criticism. 

Dr. John Fothergill was a man to whom 
America owes a strong debt of gratitude for the 
work he attempted and partly accomplished in 
her cause. He was a Yorkshireman, a Quaker 


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Preparing for the Revolution. 87 


by birthright, a graduate in medicine of the Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh, who began practice in a 
humble way in London. His great abilities, his 
courtly manners, his fidelity to his profession, 
brought to him a most lucrative practice from 
the nobility and wealth of the capital. Though 
‘chronically overworked in his profession, his 
large public spirit kept him continually engaged 
in a variety of philanthropic and political move- 
ments of an unsectarian character. His access 
to the influential men of England, many of 
whom were his patients, gave him great oppor- 
tunities for advancing anything he had at heart. 

As one of the great botanists of his day he 
was brought into association with many Ameri- 
cans of note. John Bartram and Humphrey 
Marshall were his collectors. Owning the best 
stocked botanical gardens in the world, except 
only the Royal Gardens at Kew, he sought to 
introduce into his country every valuable plant 
from all over the world. His botanical interests 
constituted a strong tie with America. Another 
was his Quaker acquaintance, gained by the re- 
ligious travels of his father and brother, both 
ministers, in the colonies. Then he was for a 
long time a clerk of the Yearly Meeting, and a 
prominent member of the Meeting for Suffer- 


88 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ings. In this way he had abundant opportuni- 
ties for intimate acquaintance with American 
conditions and with English political tendencies, 
and used all for the furtherance of good under- 
standing and good will. With James Pem- 
berton as an ally in Philadelphia, and Franklin 
as a diplomatic go-between, the trio wrought 
at many an international problem, and essayed 
some that were too difficult for their solution. 
His most useful co-laborer was David Barclay, 
the grandson of the Apologist, and the two, with 
Franklin, as we shall see later, made an attempt, 
which for a time seemed hopeful, to settle the 
difficulties between the mother-country and the 
colonies. Franklin says of him: “I doubt 
whether there has ever existed a man more 
worthy than Dr. Fothergill of universal esteem 
and veneration.” And again: “If we may esti- 
mate the goodness of a man by his disposition to 
do good, and his constant endeavors and success 
in doing it, I can hardly conceive that a better 
man has ever existed.” Upon hearing of Dr. 
Fothergill’s death, in 1781, he wrote to David 
Barclay: “I condole with you most sincerely on 
the loss of our dear friend, Dr. Fothergill. I 
hope that some one who knew him well will do 
justice to his memory by an account of his life 


Preparing for the Revolution. 89 


and character. He was a great doer of good. 
How much might have been done, and how much 
mischief prevented, if his, your and my joint en- 
deavors in a certain melancholy affair had been 
attended to.” * It is one of the best testimonials 
to Franklin’s character at this time that the es- 
teem was reciprocated. 

The following letter of James Pemberton to 
Dr. Fothergill will give an idea of the political 
condition of the Province after the repeal of the 
Stamp Act, and of the rivalry of the sects. It 
shows evidence of the growing rapprochement 
of the Friends and Episcopalians, which became 
pronounced in the few years immediately pre 
ceding the Revolution: 

I am unwilling to neglect this opportunity of transmitting 
thee some account of our present circumstances, though a 


minute detail of occurrences relating to our public affairs 
may be rather tedious than interesting. 


* The standing of Fothergill in Pennsylvania is shown by 
an abstract from a letter of Samuel Purviance, Jr., Sep- 
tember 10th, 1764. He says in reference to the activity of 
Friends in urging the abolition of proprietary government: 
“Last night, John Hunt, a famous Quaker preacher, ar- 
rived from London in order, it is believed, to give Friends 
a rap on the knuckles for their late proceedings; and it is 
said a brother of the famous Fothergill will immedi- 
ately follow on the same errand, tho’ their great sticklers 
have, by numerous falsehoods, propagated a belief that 
their friends at home highly approve of their measures.” 
—Shippen Letters, p. 206. 


90 Quakers in the Revolution. 


It gives the true friends to the Province much satisfaction 
to find our address, and those from the other colonies, on 
the repeal of the stamp act, were approved and well re- 
ceived, and that the conduct of the people has not furnished 
occasion of uneasiness to our friends or triumph to our op- 
ponents on your side, from which we flatter ourselves the 
ensuing session of Parliament may produce a further re- 
dress of our grievances; a repeal of the act prohibiting an 
emission of paper currency is an object of our particular 
attention. Long experience has given the most undeniable 
proofs of the advantage of that currency to the people of 
this Province in promoting cultivation, commerce, and de- 
fraying the exigencies of government, the want of which 
medium reduces the people to extreme difficulties to fulfill 
their contracts; the business of the lawyers is greatly in- 
creasing, plantations frequently selling by execution at less 
than one-half the value which they brought a few years 
past, and the complaints from all quarters daily increasing; 
the public debt accumulating to a great sum and no means 
to discharge it, but by adding to the taxes, which are al- 
ready very burdensome to the laborious part of the people; 
so that unless we are relieved in this matter our situation 
must inevitably be very distressing, and those of inferior 
circumstances fall under subjection to the power of the rich. 
Our assembly of this year have renewed their instructions 
to the agents, warmly to solicit this matter to the Parlia- 
ment, in which we hope they will be supported by the re- 
spectable merchants of your city, whose interest is inti- 
mately concerned therein. 

The sessions of the assembly of last year concluded satis- 
factorily. I have sent thee, per John Morton, a young man 
passenger in this ship, the minutes for thy amusement at 
a leisure hour. Our late election approached without much 
previous stirring on the part of the Presbyterian party, 
until a few weeks before the day, when some letters written 
by the stamp master of this city to London, said to be 
sent from thence, appeared in one of our public papers, in 
order to excite a clamor and rouse them on the occasion, 
but failed of answering all the purposes intended by the 


Preparing for- the Revolution. 91 


publishers; the most considerate of the party, despairing 
of success, had given over an intention of moving, the false- 
hoods propagated against Franklin being cleared away, and 
the conduct of the assembly furnishing no fresh occasion 
for clamor. They at length concluded to attempt the 
change of one member in this country, Jos. Galloway, con- 
cerning whom they alleged he had written in favor of the 
stamp act; in opposition they set up Dickinson, his former 
opponent, which, it is said, was encouraged by a2 few of 
our friends, but in this scheme they failed much beyond 
their expectation, and my colleague of last year, who I 
thought a valuable member in the house, tho’ accounted to 
be of the proprietary part, refusing to serve, they prepared 
to keep Dickinson for 2 burgess m opposition to another, 
Lawyer Ross, but again failed, the latter being elected after 
a smart struggle, which may be attributed in some measure 
to the serviceable law we obtained last winter, which I 
wish to see confirmed by royal authority, as it will prevent 
a great deal of swearing and foreswearing and the shameful 
impositions to which our elections have been heretofore 
subject. 

The present assembly being, all but three, the same mem- 
bers as last year, met, pursuant to charter, on the 1]4th 
ulto., and proceeded on the business appearing necessary 
at that time, having first chosen a new speaker (Galloway), 
whose qualifications must be allowed superior to the former 
speaker (Fox), but as there appeared too much of a spirit 
of party, as I apprehended, I could not jom therem; the 
choice has been an oceasion of speculation among the peo- 
ple, but I hope will not be attended with much ill conse 
quence; tho’ I avoid mixing with the multitude im their 
discussion of political points, thinking it safest to remain 
unbiased in my judgment and endeavoring to pursue what I 
apprehend will promote the general good as far as I am 
capable to determine and may be assisted by wisdom su- 
perior to my own, which I find as necessary to be attended 
to in that station as in business which may be looked upon 
as of a more religious nature. 

The people of the increasing society (Presbyterians) who 


92 Quakers in the Revolution. 


have been of late very active in our political affairs, finding 
their forcible measures fail of success, begin now to make 
professions of regard and friendship, urging moderation and 
a union of the dissenters in opposition to the power of the 
established church, being greatly alarmed at the apprehen- 
sion of a bishop being fixed in America, which they foresee 
must tend to lessen their power and number, there being 
the utmost reason to expect many of their preachers will 
gladly embrace an opportunity of accepting a benefit at the 
expense of others or the public. 

The vast increase of these people upon the continent 
must in great measure be attributed to the too apparent 
neglect of the Church of England, who, to the dishonor 
of their profession, have so little regard to the morals of 
the persons they appoint to the office of clergymen. Had 
they been careful to send over men who had a due regard 
to the cause of religion, or at least such who are careful 
to support a moral character, and promoted the erecting 
of worship houses as the country increased in inhabitants, 
many of the present generation, whose fathers were of the 
Church of England, might have been prevented from being 
educated in the bigotry of Presbyterianism, and until the 
bishops are more in earnest to promote their society in 
these parts it will continue to make a poor figure; on the 
contrary a moderate care to employ men of sobriety and 
exemplary conversation will be the most rational human 
means of retarding the rapid progress of the others, who are 
indefatigable in promoting the cause of their sect, watching 
all opportunities of sending out the young preachers from 
the college of this city, New Jersey, and an academy in 
the lower counties, providing places for them to erect 
schools and meeting houses in all parts of the several prov- 
inces where they can hear they are wanted; and it must 
be allowed the synods are careful to promote such men who 
are at least careful in their moral conduct, by which means 
they obtain an influence in their neighborhood, and draw 
numbers to them who would prefer the Church of Eng- 
land as a more fashionable profession had they the op- 
portunity; others, again, are filled with zeal or passion, 


Preparing for the Revolution. 93 


thundering out anathemas, by which they captivate some 
and frighten others to believe them to be true ministers of 
the Gospel. 


When the Stamp Act was repealed, it was ac- 
companied by a declaration of right to lay fur- 
ther taxes of a similar nature. In the great joy 
and triumph of the repeal this was overlooked. 
But the ministry were determined not to allow 
America to forget that she was a subject bound 
by any laws which the parent country might 
choose to enact. Evidently there was no sym- 
pathy or aid to be looked for, and the best to be 
expected was neglect. William Logan, writing 
from London, Sixth month 21st, 1768, says: 


You may conquer the Indians, but that conquest which 
accompanies carnage and the ruin of a few helpless savages 
is inconsistent with the humanity which is the characteris- 
tie of a British soldier. Whatever misfortune you are in- 
volved in, you will find no country less ready to assist you 
than the English; they despise and hate you, and I am apt 
to think that they would see your country depopulated, 
your trade ruined and themselves reduced to the greatest 
extremity rather than try to avert the misfortune. The 
Boston papers have been foolishly irritating, and have 
greatly hurt you, for the greatest number of the people 
in this metropolis are so ignorant of common geography 
that they often jumble Philadelphia, New York and Boston 
into towns of the same country, or else separate them into 
islands as far distant from each other as Minorca from 
Jamaica. 


Hence followed a succession of irritating and 
futile efforts to squeeze a little revenue from 


94 Quakers in the Revolution. 


America during the succeeding ten years, till 
America was brought to the point of fighting. 
The Philadelphia Friends were too clear-sighted 
not to be aware of the inevitable drift. Again 
and again Pemberton and Fothergill, in perfect 
sympathy with each other, urged the objections 
to the foolish course of the English Ministry, 
and the hot-headed and illegal resistance of many 
of the colonists. The meetings were insistent in 
advising obedience to laws which did not touch 
conscience, and restiaint and moderation in pro- 
test. They had all they could do to keep their 
younger members in line, and many broke away. 
Nor do the Friends seem to have lost their politi- 
cal influence in the state, but down to the very 
dissolution of the Assembly, in 1776, their spirit 
was felt in its conservative course. 
Through these pre-Revolutionary days no 
man’s influence was more important than that of 
_ John Dickinson. He was the son of a planter 
whose home was on the eastern shore of Mary- 
land, a Quaker by several generations of inheri- 
tance. The father was ambitious that his boys 
: should be well educated, and, apparently for this 
purpose, bought a large estate near Dover, in 
Delaware, and removed there in 1740, when 
John was eight years old. Here he became 


JOHN DICKINSON. 


FROM A PHOTOGRAVURE PORTRAIT AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING. 


Preparing for the Revolution. 95 


judge of the county court and a man of promi- 
nence. For the next ten years the boy was un- 
der the care of a tutor, who filled his mind with 
high ideals and aided him to secure an English 
style remarkably simple and elegant and effec- 
tive, which no one of that day of involved 
phrases, except perhaps Franklin, equalled, and 
which made him easily “the Penman of the 
Revolution.” 

Ten years then followed of close historical and 
legal study, in the Philadelphia office of the first 
lawyer of his day, in the Inns of Court in Lon- 
don, and again in Philadelphia in his own mod- 
est start at practice. His well-trained, logical 
mind, his conservative and orderly tendencies, 
his Quaker associations, made him a valuable re- 
eruit to the cause of moderate resistance which 
distinguished the Pennsylvania colonists. There 
is a basis of legality in the efforts of the Quaker 
colony, easily distinguishable from this time for- 
ward, which is due to his training and natural 
proclivities, which especially marks it when con- 
trasted with the more impetuous appeals to the 
rights of man which the New Englanders made 
the grounds of opposition to English encroach- 
ments. 

His association with Friends was probably, at 
least in early life, not much more than nominal. 


96 Quakers in the Revolution. 


We do not find him interested even in the busi- 
ness affairs of the Society, and, what was some- 
thing of a test in those days,’ his letters even to 
his mother were not written in Quaker language. 
He was a soldier through the Revolution, yet 
there is apparently no record of his “ disown- 
ment,” though that fate befell many of his fel- 
lows, nor did he apparently have anything to do 
with the “ Free Quakers.” Yet in his later life 
he was closely associated with Friends, and was 
probably a member. The son of his friend, 
Chief Justice Read, writes of him: “I have a 
vivid impression of the man, tall and spare, his 
hair white as snow, his face uniting with the 
severe simplicity of his sect, a neatness and ele- 
gance peculiarly in keeping with it; his man- 
ners a beautiful emanation of the great Christian 
principle of love, with that gentleness and affec- 
tionateness which, whatever may be the cause, 
' the Friends, or at least individuals among them, 
exhibit more than others, combining the polite- 
ness of a man of the world familiar with society 
in its most polished forms with conventional 
canons of behavior. ‘Truly he lives in my mem- 
ory as the realization of my beau-ideal of a gen- 
tleman.”’ * 


* Stillé’s “‘ Life of John Dickinson.” 


Preparing for the Revolution. 97 


John Dickinson’s main interests were political 
rather than legal, and for a political career he 
had equipped himself by a painstaking prepara- 
tion in historical and logical study. In 1760 
he was made a member of the Delaware Assem- 
bly, and two years later, at the age of 30, of the 
Pennsylvania Assembly. 

The great question then agitating the people 
was the conduct of the Proprietors. In a spirit 
of disgust at their haggling policy the Assembly 
had brought in resolutions petitioning the King 
to take the government upon himself. The peo 
ple appeared nearly unanimous for this measure. 
The Quakers were generally in their favor. The 
Presbyterians for once sided with their peaceful 
opponents, because they felt the difficulties of 
defending the frontiers while the Proprietary es- 
tates were exempt from taxation. It required 
some courage for even the veteran Isaac Norris 
to stem the tide. But to the young student of 
history and law, with his place to make with the 
people, there was not a little fortitude needed to 
espouse the unpopular cause. In an elegant and 
cogent speech he made, not a defence of the Pro- 
prietors, whose conduct he admitted to be inde- 
fensible, but a plea against the worse evils of 
royal government to which they were exposing . 


98 Quakers in the Revolution. 


themselves. He pleaded for the old charter and 
the liberties it gave them, and asked if in any 
of the royal colonies there was more real free- 
dom. He hinted at a possible church establish- 
ment and a standing army, and pertinently asked 
whether the Crown had not supported the Pro- 
prietors in their worst claims. “In seeking a 
precarious, hasty, violent remedy for the present 
partial disorder we are sure of exposing the whole 
body to danger.” 

Few would say in the light of following events 
that Dickinson was wrong. The Proprietors 
were better masters than the King would have 
been. So far, however, as immediate effect was 
concerned, the virtues of Norris and the argu- 
ment of Dickinson, who afterwards became his 
son-in-law, were futile. The Assembly adopted 
the resolutions by an overwhelming vote, and 
sent Franklin to England. Dickinson lost his 
place in the subsequent election, and did not 
regain it till 1770, when the people began to ap- 
preciate the wisdom of his position. 

When the attempt was made to impose the 
Stamp Act upon America, John Dickinson found 
himself in close accord with popular sentiment. 
He framed the plan of protest which was adopted 
by the Stamp Act Congress in 1765, appears to 


Preparing for the Revolution. 99 


have been the author of its “ Declaration of 
Rights” and “ Petition to the King,” and also 
a draft from which the resolutions adopted by 
the Assembly of Pennsylvania were largely 
taken. A few weeks later he aroused public 
sentiment by a vigorous protest, published 
anonymously. “Rouse yourselves, therefore, my 
dear countrymen. Think, oh! think of the end- 
less miseries you must entail upon yourselves 
and your country by touching the pestilential 
cargoes that have been sent to you. Destruc- 
tion lurks within them. To receive them is 
death: it is worse than death—it is slavery. If 
you do not—and I trust heaven youwill not—use 
the stamped papers, it will be necessary to con- 
sider how you are to act.”” He wrote the Liberty 
Song, which went over the country like fire, and 
which contains at least one line that will never 
be forgotten, the watchword of the Revolution 
—“ By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.” 
During the ten years to come his pen was not 
idle. No other person in America gave a greater 
stimulus to resistance, and no other person 
showed so clearly the lines on which resistance 
was justifiable, and likely to be successful. The 
crown of his reputation and influence was 
reached by the publication of the “ Farmer’s Let- 


100 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ters’”?in 1768. These are the appeals of a states. 
man, not a demagogue, to conserve the liberties 
which Englishmen have always considered their 
due, by methods which Englishmen have found 
successful in the past. Unqualifiedly rebuking 
the tyranny which had attempted to impose on 
America the duties on paper, glass and tea, he ap- 
peals to England to meet the colonies in a con- 
ciliatory spirit, and remove the obnoxious taxes. 
With a veiled hint at the possibility of ultimate 
armed resistance, he yet counsels his brethren 
to carry on their opposition by legal and mod- 
erate, if firm measures. “The cause of liberty 
is a cause of too much dignity to be sullied by 
turbulence and tumult. It ought to maintained 
in a manner suitable to her nature. Those who 
engage in it should breathe a sedate yet fervent 
spirit, animating them to actions of prudence, 
justice, modesty, bravery, humanity and mag- 
‘nanimity.” 

The letters were the legal justification of 
American resistance, and ultimately of the 
Revolution. Dickinson was not prepared for in- 
dependence in 1776, and refused to sign the Dec- 
laration. He did not believe that the resources 
of constitutional resistance were exhausted, and 
his conservative nature shrank from this first dis- 


Preparing for the Revolution. 101 


loyal act to the mother country. This hesita- 
tion, due to his legal studies and Quaker habits, 
has been the occasion of serious charges against 
his courage and sincerity. It has obscured the 
fact that for the preceding eight years he had 
been the acknowledged patriot leader, the most 
important man in America, and that “in the lit- 
erature of that struggle his position is as promi- 
nent as Washington in war, Franklin in diplo- 
macy, and Morris in finance.” * He was only 
thirty-five when the letters were written. 

They were translated into French, and helped 
to mould the thought of that rapidly-fermenting 
country. They were reprinted in England and 
had a marked effect on ministry and people alike. 
They were the guides of American freedom, 
and brought down upon their author the thanks 
of all the leaders in the cause, and Hancock, 
Adams and Warren were appointed by the Bos- 
tonians a committee to express the obligations of 
Boston to him. During those days no serious 
movement was made in the colonies without con- 
sultation with him. He probably conceived the 
opinion that his influence could steer the whole 


* Paul Leicester Ford in the Preface to Dickinson’s Writ- 
ings. 


102 Quakers in the Revolution. 


revolutionary movement by legal and peaceful 
means to ultimate success. 

While not much of a Quaker he undoubtedly 
represented and dignified the Quaker idea of the 
preservation of liberty. He represented also 
their absolute loss of influence and power which 
coincided with the Declaration. 

The Boston Tea Party had its counterpart in 
Philadelphia. The firm to which the East India 
Company had consigned their tea was a firm of 
Friends, Thomas and Isaac Wharton. They 
write: 

At ten o’clock on the morning of the 27th (December, 
1773) a very numerous meeting of the inhabitants deter- 
mined that the tea should not be landed, and allowed Cap- 
tain Ayres till next day to furnish himself with provisions, 
ete., on condition that his ship should depart from his then 
situation, and proceed down the river, some of the com- 
mittee going down te the ship with Captain Ayres, in order 
to see the first step performed....T. and I. W. with 
I. B. offered to advance Captain Ayres such a sum of money 
as he should need. . . . Thou wilt observe as the ship was 
' not entered in our port the cargo was not unloaded, either 


the property of the Honorable East India Company or that 
of any private person. 


In Boston they resented the suggestion of 
Dickinson that as a matter of conciliation they 
should pay for the tea. In Philadelphia, equally 
unwilling to land it, they sent it back, loaning 
the captain sufficient to see him through. 


Preparing for the Revolution. 103 


The Friends had been previously advised to 
keep out of the excitement. James Pemberton 
writes on Tenth month 30th, 1773, to several 
London correspondents: 


By the ships now about sailing for London you will doubt- 
less have intelligence of the uneasiness raised in the minds 
of the people here, and the measures they have taken to 
manifest it, on an account being received of the intentions 
of the East India Company to import a quantity of tea 
to this and some others of the colonies, and I apprehend 
it will give you some satisfaction and may not be improper 
to inform you of the part our Society has acted on this 
occasion, there being many among us concerned in trade, 
and some not sufficiently on their guard to act consistent 
with our religious professions, and, therefore, too liable 
sometimes to fall in with the popular outery. It, therefore, 
became our concern, as soon as there was an appearance 
of ferment rising among the people, to collect the overseers 
of our three monthly meetings in order to confer on the 
measures most prudent and seasonable, to communicate 
suitable advice to our members, who all concurring in senti- 
ment, they agreed to call in to a further conference an ad- 
ditional number of Friends. For this purpose they ad- 
journed to meet the next evening, when, unanimity pre- 
vailing, it was concluded to give an invitation to all the 
members of our Society to collect at one of our meeting 
houses, and that such advice as had heretofore been given 
should be revived and such endeavors used as might be 
likely to unite us in judgment and produce consistency of 
conduct. 

This meeting, which consisted of the greatest part of 
Friends of this city, happened on the evening before the 
day appointed for the citizens to collect at the State house, 
and on that account was the more seasonable. When 
Friends came together, the occasion of their being called 
‘was briefly opened. The advice of our ancient friend, 


104 Quakers in the Revolution. 


George Fox, was read, also the epistle from your Meeting 
of Sufferings in the year 1769, also the cautionary minute 
of our last yearly meeting. These were enforced by some 
judicious observations of divers Friends exciting to a due 
consideration of the nature of our religious profession, 
which requires us to keep quiet and still, both in respect 
to conversation and conduct, on such public occasions, 
which tended to unite us in sentiment in such manner that 
Friends separated well satisfied with their coming together, 
and manifested it by their conduct next day, there not be- 
ing one, that I have heard, of any account in the Society 
who assembled at the State house, and the number there 
collected was much less than was expected. 

Although we are not insensible of the encroachments of 
powers, and of the value of our civil rights, yet in matters 
contestable we can neither join with nor approve the meas- 
ures which have been too often proposed by particular per- 
sons, and adopted by others, for asserting and defending 
them, and such is the agitation of the minds of those who 
are foremost in these matters it appears in vain to inter- 
fere. 


The first Continental Congress met in Carpen- 
ters’ Hall, Philadelphia, in September, 1774. It 
was a body which breathed resistance to demands 
which almost every one considered unreasonable 
and oppressive, but it was not a revolutionary 
body. “No such thing as independence is de 
sired by any thinking man in America,” wrote 
Washington, and John Adams had pledged even 
refractory Massachusetts to a similar idea. 
“That there are any who pant after independ- 
ence is the greatest slander on the Province.” 

The man who had most to do in preparing 


HOMSON. 


T 
OLD ENGRAVING. 


CHARLES 
FRO 


AN 


M 


Preparing for the Revolution. 105 


Pennsylvania for this Congress was Charles 
Thomson. He had been the head of the Quaker 
school, “ the-man-who-tells-the-truth ” of the In- 
dians; and now began that Revolutionary career 
which, as Secretary of the Continental Congress, 
made him almost invaluable to the patriot cause. 
He knew the Friends well, though not himself 
a member with them. He knew that some of 
them could not be touched by any revolutionary 
impulses, but others, who were men of influence 
in politics and society, were almost essential to 
the success of the cause into which, with impul- 
sive energy, he had thrown himself. Paul 
Revere had come on from Boston to enlist the 
aid of Pennsylvania in a radical movement. The 
New York “Sons of Liberty ” had invited corre- 
spondence, and a meeting was to be held in reply 
to it. Thomson had the vigorous aid of Thomas 
Mifflin, who, though a well-to-do Quaker mer- 
chant of Philadelphia, afterwards won distinc- 
tion as a general in the war and as Governor of 
Pennsylvania. The moderate and philosophical 
Dickinson must of course be secured, and Thom- 
son tells, in a letter * still in existence, how he 
used Dickinson’s influence to bring the Quakers 


* This may be seen in the appendix to Dr. Stillé’s “ Life 
of John Dickinson.” 


106 Quakers in the Revolution. 


into line. It was arranged that Thomson and 
Miffiin should make fiery and radical speeches in 
favor of aiding Boston, and that Dickinson 
should then follow in his favorite role of modera- 
tor and originator of policy. The plan worked 
perfectly, the more so perhaps as Thomson 
fainted in the midst of his fervent oration, and 
so could not tell afterwards what Dickinson had 
said. However, the sympathetic answer to Bos- 
ton was carried in confusion, and the scheme 
worked out as desired. 

By further plotting, a delegation of Pennsyl- 
vanians was sent to the Continental Congress. 
But still Pennsylvania was conservative, and the 
Assembly, not under the influence of Thomson 
and his friends, sent their speaker, Galloway, 
a loyalist, as the head of the delegation, with 
Dickinson, Mifflin, Samuel Rhoads and four 
others. Dickinson wrote all the important ad 
‘dresses. 

Much was said by Thomson of the desirability 
of taking such a prudent course as to carry the 
Quaker influence with the revolutionists, for this 
influence would also bring the Germans into line 
and make the Province unanimous for liberty. 
Nothing, however, could move the serintes 


Preparing for the Revolution. 107 


Friends who controlled the Yearly Meeting, and 
Thomson must have known it. 

The movement was too evidently leading on to 
anarchy and war, and they would have nothing 
to do with it. The following minute shows the 

rigidity of their position: 

At a Meeting for Sufferings, held at Philadelphia, the 15th 
day of the Twelfth month, 1774: 

After a considerable time spent in a weighty considera- 
tion of the afflicting state of affairs and the late proceedings 
of the assembly of Pennsylvania in approving the resolves 
and conclusions of the Congress held in this city in the 
Ninth and Tenth months last, which contain divers resolu- 
tions very contrary to our Christian profession and princi- 
ples, and as there are several members of our religious so- 
ciety who are members of that assembly, some of whom, 
we have reason to apprehend, have either agreed to the 
late resolves, which are declared to be unanimous, or not 
manifested their dissent in such a manner as a regard to 
our Christian testimony would require of them, being a 
danger of such being drawn into further inconsistencies of 
conduct in their public stations, the following Friends are 
desired to take an opportunity of informing them of the 
trouble and sorrow they brought on their brethren, who are 
concerned to maintain our principles on the ancient founda- 
tion, and to excite them to greater watchfulness, ete., to 
avoid agreeing to proposals, resolutions or measures so in- 
consistent with the testimony of truth. 


James Pemberton, in a private letter, also em- 
phasizes the same view: 
Philadelphia, Eleventh month 6th, 1774. 


American affairs are, I conclude, now become the sub- 
ject of general attention in Great Britain, and I have no 


108 Quakers in the Revolution. 


doubt that many of our brethren are anxiously concerned 
for the preservation of Friends in a conduct consistent with 
our Christian profession and principles amidst the commo- 
tions which prevail among the people. The troubles which 
had begun while thou wast among us have been gradually 
increasing, until they are now come to a very alarming and 
serious crisis; the unwarrantable conduct of the people in 
Boston last fall has brought upon them a severe chastise- 
ment in consequence of the measures adopted by the Parlia- 
ment of Great Britain; this has alarmed all the colonies, 
who apprehend their civil privileges invaded; a Congress of 
deputies from all the provinces between Nova Scotia and 
Georgia has been lately held in this city, which, after sit- 
ting more than six weeks, have formed such resolves and 
conclusions as, some of us fear, will be likely to increase 
our difficulties, unless, by the interposition of Providence, 
some way should be opened for a reconciliation. The peo- 
ple in New England have taken recourse to arms, and 
seem only to be waiting for a plausible opportunity of mak- 
ing use of them; hitherto the inhabitants of Boston have 
conducted themselves as peaceably as could be expected un- 
der the circumstances, and considering the temper of the 
people. 

The conduct of the people in this and some of the 
other provinces can not be vindicated, but such is the 
spirit prevailing that all endeavors to bring them to a cool, 
dispassionate way of thinking and acting have been un- 
‘available; so that Friends can do little more than exert 
their influence to persuade the members of our Society to 
keep out of these bustles and commotions, and this has 
occasioned no small care and labor, but has been so far 
of service that I hope it may be said we are generally clear; 
tho’ there have been instances of some few who claim a 
right of membership with us that have not kept within 
such limits and bounds as we could wish. 

On the other hand, it would be a proof of wisdom in 
those concerned in government on your side at least to 
suspend the exercise of a power, the right of which is not 
admitted by the colonists and is at least doubtful. Should 


Preparing for the Revolution. 109 


the administration pursue further rigorous measures it 
seems too likely that there will be much bloodshed in these 


colonies. 


But there is no doubt that there were other 
Friends, how many it is probably impossible to 
ascertain, who, while not willing to join Mifflin 
and Dickinson in armed resistance, were in 
hearty sympathy with the Continental Congress, 
and in the eyes of the public represented the 
Quaker political influence. They were in the 
_ Assembly, and in the official stations through the 
counties. Government was theirs by the inheri- 
tance of nearly a century. They swayed the 
habits of thought of their constituents, and were 
greatly respected in every social and civil func- 
tion. Many of them were of that class which 
modern writers call Quaker—the class which, 
after 1756, had filled the Assembly, and man- 
aged public affairs, except in the matter of war, 
on Quaker lines, but who were not members of 
the Society of Friends. These were the people 
that Thomson hoped to carry with him into the 
Revolution, and which the precipitancy of Mas- 
sachusetts seemed in danger of estranging. They 
were patriotically attached to liberty, and had 
wrought for it effectually in the past against the 
encroachments of Proprietor as well as King, but 


110 Quakers in the Revolution. 


rebellion was to them a dangerous word, and 
respect for existing authority was deeply in- 
grained in their nature. 

They could not see their duty quite as the 
meeting advised, but they wished temperately to 
bring the King to his senses, and abate the ex- 
citement of the people. The patriots were too 
precipitate. They, in 1776, without good rea- 
son, destroyed Penn’s Charter of 1701, and set 
up, against the advice of Dickinson, Thomson 
and Mifflin, a revolutionary government, of 
which Franklin was the controlling spirit, and 
a certain amount of Quaker sympathy was lost 
to the side of independence. 

While the Philadelphia Friends were striving 
in 1774 to be a calming influence in the affairs 
of the Province and of the Continental Congress, 
some of their English brethren were working 

_with their ministry to avert the threatened war 
by timely concession. 

Before the results of the Congress had reached 
England, David Barclay and Dr. Fothergill had 
asked Franklin to prepare a list of American de- 
mands, making it as moderate as possible, which 
they would present to men influential in the 
Ministry as a basis for reconciliation. As a re- 
sult of this request Franklin made out seventeen 


Preparing for the Revolution. alata 


conditions as a possible basis for the restoration 
of good feeling. The first one was, “The tea 
destroyed to be paid for,” and the seventeenth, 
“All powers of internal legislation in the col- 
onies to be disclaimed by Parliament.” The 
“Hints,” as they were called, were the ground- 
work of a series of discussions, first within the 
trio of peacemakers, and then gradually extend- 
ing the circle of those interested, until they in- 
cluded the moderate men of influence in the 
government, like Lord Howe. Franklin says: 


The doctor [Fothergill] called on me and told me he 
had communicated them, and with them had verbally given 
my arguments in support of them, to Lord Dartmouth, 
who after consideration had told him some of them ap- 
peared reasonable, but others were inadmissible or im- 
practicable; that having occasion to frequently see the 
Speaker, he had also communicated them to him, as he 
found him very anxious for a reconciliation; that the 
Speaker had said that it would be very humiliating to 
Britain to be obliged to submit to such terms; but the 
doctor told him she had been unjust and ought to bear the 
consequences and alter her conduct; that the pill might be 
bitter, but it would be salutary, and must be swallowed; 
that these were the sentiments of impartial men after 
thorough consideration and full information of all circum- 
stances; and that sooner or later these or similar measures 
must be followed, or the empire would be divided and 
ruined. 


Having thus committed himself to the 
“ Hints” in speaking to officials, Dr. Fothergill 
was anxious to have Franklin abate some of the 


112 Quakers in the Revolution. 


most objectionable demands. “ The good doctor, 
with his usual philanthropy, expatiated on the 
miseries of war; that even a bad peace was pre- 
ferable to the most successful war; that America 
was growing in strength, and whatever she might 
be obliged to submit to at present, she would in 
a few years be in a condition to make her own 
terms.” But Franklin says he told them his own 
property was in a seaport town, and the British 
might burn it when they pleased; that America 
had no intention to abate her terms; that Eng- 
land must be careful of the mischief she did, for 
“sooner or later she would be obliged to make 
good all damages with interest. The doctor 
smiled, as I thought, with some approbation of 
my discourse, passionate as it was, and said he 
would certainly repeat it to-morrow to Lord Dart- 
mouth.” 

The ministry was foolishly inflexible, and 
' Fothergill and Barclay finally gave it up. Frank- 
lin was about to leave for America. He says: 
“T met them by their desire at the doctor’s house, 
when they desired me to assure their friends 
from them that it was now their fixed opinion 
that nothing could secure the privileges of 
America but a firm, sober adherence to the terms 
of the association made at the Congress, and that 


Preparing for the Revolution. 113 


the salvation of English liberty depended now on 
the perseverance and virtue of America.” 

In the midst of the negotiations Dr. Fothergill 
writes to his friend, James Pemberton: 


London, First month 3d, 1775. 

I am afraid they will pursue, in one shape or other, the 
same destructive plan,—at least it appears so to me,—that 
no abatement of any consequence will be made—no ma- 
terial alterations or concessions; of course, if you are as 
resolute as we seem, unhappily, to be firm, dissolution must 
follow. It will not be long before this will be manifest; 
America will then know what she has to expect. For my 
own part, having from my early infancy been attentive to 
America, more than many others,—the several visits of my 
father to that extensive country, of my brother, of my 
most valued friends—the acquaintance I have had with 
some of the most sensible, intelligent, judicious persons in 
that country, of every party, denomination, province and 
situation,—I cannot give up on slight grounds the opinions 
I have formed of them, of their rights, and of their power 
likewise. To say what these opinions are is unnecessary, 
because they are unavailing, as they are opposite to the 
sentiments of the generality, who, being ignorant of what 
America is, or by whom inhabited—looking no higher, no 
further, than the confined limits of a decaying empire, 
think with contempt of every one who pleads for freedom. 

But we know not what is for the best. We should not, 
perhaps, be better if we grew greater; it seems to be the 
will of Providence that after we have humbled the pride 
of the most potent»houses in Europe, we should be humbled 
likewise by our own selves in our turn. Had our greatest 
enemies the direction of our counsels they could not drive 
us to a more dangerous precipize than that to which we 
seem hastening with a judicial blindness. 


David Barclay sent advance accounts of the 
negotiations to James Pemberton. He went 


114 Quakers in the Revolution. 


over the whole series of efforts to find a basis for 
reconciliation, and his account closely agrees 
with Franklin’s. He also practically gives up 
the case, and hopes America will unitedly con- 
tinue her resistance by peaceful measures. He 
warns Philadelphia Friends not to lay much 
stress on a few concessions granted by Lord 
North, which are, he says, for the purpose of di- 
viding the Americans, and on behalf of “ your 
best friend’s love” rather chides them for show- 
ing a disposition to parade their loyalty at the 
expense of others, in an address of their Meeting 
for Sufferings of First month 24th, 1775: “ The 
declaration of our religious and peaceable prin- 
ciples everybody must approve, and there on that 
ground your best friends wish you to remain.” 
The address hardly seems open to the objection 
he makes. It is a radical declaration of opposi- 
tion to the whole revolutionary movement. 
' Fothergill and Barclay seem to have favored this 
movement while it adopted only peaceful meth- 
ods, and so, we apprehend, did a great many of 
the Friends of Philadelphia, but the Meeting for 
_Sufferings objected to the illegalities and excite- 
ments which Thomson was nursing, as unneces- 
sary, for was there not the Assembly, elected 
yearly, and expressing the popular will, through 


Strom Skerchk Sov J FWatsun 


Pay. en 


CENTER SQUARE MEETING HOUSE. 


ERECTED 1684-5, AT BROAD AND HIGH (NOW MARKET) STREETS. IT PROVED 
INACCESSIBLE, AND IN 1698 WAS ABANDONED, AND THE MATERIALS 
WERE AFTERWARDS USED IN THE ERECTION OF ANOTHER 
MEETING HOUSE NEAR THE RIVER FRONT. 


I. il j= 
JGR RANE 


il H 


THE BANK MEETING HOUSE. 


ERECTED 1685, ON FRONT ABOVE MULBERRY (NOW ARCH) STREETS. 
ABANDONED 1790. 


Preparing for the Revolution. 115 


which all remonstrances could be made in proper 
order? They knew, and the revolutionary party 
knew as well, that Pennsylvania was not at this 
time ready for radical actions, and that only by 
irregular and non-representative bodies could it 
be brought into the column for independence. 

They stood their ground against illegality, as 
afterwards they did against war, and expressed 
it plainly as follows: 


( Having considered with real sorrow the unhappy contest 
between the legislature of Great Britain and the people of 
these colonies, and the animosities consequent thereon, we 
have, by repeated public advice and private admonitions, 
used our endeavors to dissuade the members of our religious 
society from joining with the public resolutions promoted 
and entered into by some of the people, which, as we ap- 
prehended, so we now find, have increased contention and 
produced great discord and confusion.) 

The divine principle of grace and truth which we profess 
leads all who attend to its dictates to demean ourselves as 
peaceable subjects, and to discountenance and avoid every 
measure tending to excite disaffection to the King as su- 
preme magistrate, or to the legal authority of his govern- 
ment, to which purpose many of the late political writings 
and addresses to the people appear to be calculated. We 
are led by a sense of duty to declare our entire disapproba- 
tion of them, their spirit and temper, being not only con- 
trary to the nature and principles of the gospel, but de- 
structive of the peace and harmony of civil society, dis- 
qualifying men in these times of difficulty for the wise and 
judicious consideration and promotion of such measures as 
would be most effectual for reconciling differences or ob- 
taining the redress of grievances. ) 

From our past experience of the clemency of the King 
and his royal ancestors, we have ground to hope and believe 


116 Quakers in the Revolution. 


that decent and respectful addresses from those who are 
vested with legal authority, representing the prevailing dis- 
satisfactions and the cause of them, would avail towards 
obtaining relief, ascertaining and establishing the just rights 
of the people, and restoring the public tranquillity; and 
we deeply lament that contrary modes of proceeding have 
been pursued, which have involved the colonies in confu- 
sion, appear likely to produce violence and bloodshed, and 
threaten the subversion of the constitutional government, 
and so that liberty of conscience, for the enjoyment of 
which our ancestors were induced to encounter the mani- 
fold dangers and difficulties of crossing the seas and of set- 
tling in the wilderness. 

We, therefore, incited by a sincere concern for the peace 
and welfare of the country publickly declare against every 
usurpation of power and authority in the opposition of laws 
and government, and against the combinations, insurrec- 
tions, conspiracies and illegal assemblies, and as we are 
restrained from them by conscientious discharge of our duty 
to Almighty God, by whom kings reign and princes decree 
justice, we hope through His assistance and favor to be 
enabled to maintain our testimony against any requisitions 
which may be made of us, inconsistent with our religious 
principles and the fidelity we owe to the king and his goy- 
ernment as by law established, earnestly desiring the re- 
storation of that harmony and concord which have hitherto 
united the people of these provinces and been attended 
by the divine blessing on their labors. 


If this address seems unnecessarily loyal, we 
have only to compare it with another issued six 
months later by the Continental Congress: “At- 
tached as we are to your Majesty’s person and 
government with all the devotion that principle 
and affection can inspire, connected with Great 
Britain with the strongest ties which can unite 


Preparing for the Revolution. 117 


societies, and deploring every event that tends 
in any degree to weaken them, we solemnly as- 
sure your Majesty that we most ardently desire 
that the former happiness between her and these 
colonies may be restored,” ete. In fact, at this 
stage of proceedings everybody, except a few of 
the most hot-headed, professed, most of them 
honestly, perfect loyalty. Events came to a 
crisis very rapidly immediately after this. 

Notice also the following letter, signed by a 
great fighter, and representing the views of a 
military company: 


Chester County, September 25th, 1775. 


Whereas, some persons, evidently inimical to the liberty 
of America, have industriously propagated a report that 
the military associations of this county, in conjunction with 
the military associations in general, intend to overturn the 
Constitution by declaring an independency, in connection 
with which they are aided by this committee and the board 
of commissioners and assessors with the arms now making 
for this county, and as such a report could not originate 
but among the worst of men, for the worst of purposes, 
this committee have, therefore, thought proper to declare, 
and they do hereby declare, their ahhorrence even of an 
idea so pernicious in its nature, as they ardently wish for 
nothing more than a happy and speedy reconciliation, on 
constitutional principles, with that state from whom they 
derive their origin. : 

By order of the Committee, 
ANTHONY WAYNE, Chairman. 


118 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Dr. Fothergill gives them the following ad- 


vice, wise from their standpoint: 


“We need not suggest the necessity Friends are under 
on your side, to act with the greatest circumspection, 
neither to incline so far to the fiery popular side which like 
many amongst us led by those unfit directors, Pride and 
Passion, would sacrifice every substantial benefit in life, 
nor on the other hand, lean so much to the inflated vapors 
of arbitrary dictates as to yield assent to its encroachments 
on everything that is valuable to mankind.” “TI think it 
will be your greatest safety and wisdom to keep close to 
one another—neither to relax your care one over another, 
nor lean to the violent, nor to join the obsequious. For 
all in this life is at stake, life, liberty and property.” 
“Tf America relaxes both you and we are all undone. I 
wish Friends would studiously avoid everything adverse 
either to administration here on one side or Congress on 
the other. Submission to the prevailing power must 
be your duty. The prevailing power is the gen- 
eral voice of America.” ‘Mind your own business, and 
neither court unworthily the favor of your superiors on 
this side, nor oppose with vehemence the party which 
steps forward in the protection of your liberties, which are 
all at stake.” 


Dr. Fothergill was more American than the 
conservative American Friends themselves. 

It would probably have been wiser, in the 
light of subsequent events, had they adopted his 
policy, alike dignified and liberal. They, how- 
ever, had a testimony which they felt they must 
bear against revolution, and allowed an estrange- 
ment to grow up against the liberal party, based 
not only on war, but also on the unhealthy means 


Preparing for the Revolution. 119 


used to inflame the people. It must also be re- 
membered that at this time even the popular 
leaders were expecting some other solution of the 
difficulty than war and independence. 


120 Quakers in the Revolution. 


CHAPTER VI. 


THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REVOLUTION. 


The efforts of the peace men on both sides of 
the Atlantic were futile. The British pursued 
their policy of foolish consistency, determined to 
force the taxes down American throats. Lex- 
ington and Concord were fought, and a tremor . 
of sympathetic response ran down and up the 
Atlantic coast. The continent set itself to learn 
the art of war to defend its liberties. While con- 
servative people still hoped for an accommoda- 
tion, the youth and the vigor of America felt 
that war was at hand, and began to prepare for it. 

James Pemberton writes to Dr. Fothergill : 


Philadelphia, Fifth month 6th, 1775. 

Dear Friend: 

The account lately received of the proceedings of Parlia- 
ment on American affairs, and the intention of sending a 
further armament to Boston, have raised such a resentment 
in the colonies that the people are become more than ever 
united in a determination to defend their liberties by re- 
sistance. Surprising it is that the administration should 
persist in enforcing measures which must evidently tend 
to increase our calamities and threaten ruin to both coun- 
tries. It is too sorrowful and arduous a task to describe 
our present situation; a military spirit prevails, the peo- 
ple are taken off from employment, intent on instructing 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 121 


themselves in the art of war, and many younger members 
of our Society are daily joining with them, so that the 
distresses of this province are hastening fast; but when we 
consider the still more calamitous state of Boston, it not 
only excites the greatest compassion but brings into view 
the most gloomy prospect of future lamentable conse- 
quences, unless some unforeseen interposition of Providence 
should avert the storm. 

When the M—~-y receive account of the late military 
action near Boston they must be convinced that the New 
England men will fight; a vein of blood is now opened, 
how far it may be permitted to extend we must leave. 
Although the accounts so far received of the transaction are 
somewhat imperfect, yet it is generally agreed that the 
king’s troops are the aggressors, and narrowly escaped be- 
ing wholly cut off; by last advices the town of Boston was 
surrounded by an army of 20,000, and though the vessels of 
war intercept all provisions sent there from the Southern 
colonies, it is said they may be supplied by land from Con- 
necticut. 

Since I began this letter I have received thy acceptable 
letters by our mutual friend, Dr. Franklin, whose seasona- 
ble, unexpected return among us has dispensed general 
pleasure among all classes of people, hoping some good 
effect at this very critical time from his experience and cool 
judgment. The Congress meets on the 10th inst. 


* * * * * * * * * 


Amidst these agitations it appears most prudent and safe 
for Friends to remain quiet. The minds of the people are 
too inflamed for any interposition by us to be useful. 


* * * * * * * * * 


Your administration must soon be convinced of their mis- 
taken policy in the management of this unhappy contest. 
They may be assured the non-importation will be strictly 
observed, and it is expected all mercantile trade will be 
stopped by the Congress, so that the favor intended for 
New York, Nantucket, etc., will avail them nothing, nor 
will any other than the most lenient measures stop the ef- 


122 Quakers in the Revolution. 


fusion of blood and an increase of calamity to our and your 
country. 


The return of Franklin did not prove so calm- 
ing as Pemberton had hoped, for, throwing aside 
his wonted moderation, he plunged with vigor 
into the movement for armed resistance and in- 
dependence. 

Fothergill replies, three months later : 


I will not fill up this letter with forebodings to America 
first, and then to the whole empire of Great Britain. It is 
more than probable we shall never subdue you (when I say 
we I mean those above), but we shall struggle hard and run 
the risk of sending ourselves to the bottom if you are first 
plunged there. Fatal, fatal error! The revenge of a few 
discontented officials: what dreadful havoc it will make. 
But it is indeed, to you first and next to us, a time of great — 
sifting, and those who look forward, even amongst us, can 
not but be alarmed for the public safety. You, our breth- 
ren as a Society, I lament every day. Oh! that the weight 
of Sacred Wisdom may press all to that foundation on 
which alone they may stand securely, and extend a hand 
of help to those who are in danger of drifting with the tide 
of confusion till they perish. 


And again a little later : 


Be it known, that many amongst us deeply sympathize 
with you under your afflicted situation. America has noth- 
ing to expect henceforth but severity. If one might reason 

‘upon the righteousness of a cause by the temper of those 
who are engaged in it, ours can not be a good one. I be- 
lieve there is no scheme however contrary to the principles 
of religion and humanity that should be offered as likely 
to subdue America that would not be adopted. 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 123 


In the meantime the Meeting for Sufferings 
was attending to the general interests of the 
Society. They first addressed their members to 
be liberal in raising money for the sufferers in 
New England: 


To our friends and brethren of the several meetings in 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey: 


Dear Friends.—The afflictions and distresses attending the 
inhabitants of Massachusetts and other parts of New Eng- 
Jand have often engaged our pity and commiseration, with 
a desire to be instrumental for their relief as favorable 
opportunities should offer, and having more particular in- 
formation since the yearly meeting, held last month at 
Rhode Island, than we before had of the situation of our 
brethren and others in those parts, since which the depriva- 
tions of War have greatly increased, we are united by a 
spirit of sympathy and Christian tenderness to recommend 
to your serious and benevolent consideration the sorrow- 
ful calamities now prevailing among those people, earnestly 
desiring that we may encourage each other freely to con- 
tribute to the relief of the necessities of every religious de- 
nomination; to promote which we have agreed upon, and 
herewith send you printed subscription papers requesting 
that some suitable active Friends may be appointed in each 
of your monthly and preparative meetings to apply for the 
donations of Friends for this charitable purpose. 


A little later they forwarded to the Pennsyl- 
vania Assembly, a long address, recounting the 
privileges belonging to all inhabitants of the 
Province as the result of Penn’s liberal charter, 
and asking that those liberties, especially liberty 


124 Quakers in the Revolution. 


of conscience, be secured to all in the perilous 
times which were evidently at hand. 


We have a just sense of the value of our religious and 
civil liberties, and have ever been and are desirous of pre- 
serving them by all such measures as are not inconsistent 
with our Christian profession and principles, and though 
we believe it to be our duty to submit to the powers which 
in the course of Divine Providence are set over us, where 
there hath been or is any oppression or cause of suffering, 
we are engaged with Christian meekness and firmness to 
petition and remonstrate against it, and to endeavor by 
just reasoning and arguments to assert our rights and privi- 
leges in order to obtain relief. 

We, therefore, earnestly entreat you carefully to guard 
against any proposal or attempt to deprive us and others 
of the full enjoyment of liberty of conscience, and that 
the solemn assurance given us in the charter that we shall 
not be obliged to do or suffer any act or thing contrary 
to our religious persuasion may not be infringed: the power 
of judging respecting our sincerity belongeth only to the 
Lord of our consciences, and we hope in a province hereto- 
fore remarkable for the preservation of religious and civil 
liberty, the representatives of the people will still be con- 
scientiously careful that it may remain inviolate. 

We firmly desire that the most conciliatory measure for 
removing the impending calamities, and for restoring peace 
to the colonies in general, may be pursued, and that all 
such may be avoided as are likely to widen or perpetuate 
the breach with our parent state, or tend to introduce 
persecution or suffering among us. 


~ Furthermore, on First month 20th, 1776, they 
issued a general address to define their position. 
This afterwards gave great offence to the revo- 
lutionary party. It was an open statement of 
their opposition to extreme measures, and was no 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 125 


doubt intended to influence any who were within 
reach of their influence to avoid joining with 
them. The Germans had sent delegations to 
Philadelphia to find out how their friends, the 
Quakers, with whom they had been politically 
allied ever since they had been in the Province, 
intended to act in the emergency. Many young 
Friends had joined the military companies, and 
many more, of all ages, undoubtedly sympa- 
thized with the American cause. Apparently 
these older Friends, whose weight ruled the 
official organizations, were not ready to throw 
off their ancient allegiance, and their voice was 
still for peace, remonstrance and submission. 


The ancient testimony and principles of the people called 
Quakers, renewed with respect to the king and government, 
and touching the commotions now prevailing in these and 
other parts of America, addressed to the people in general. 

A religious concern for Friends and fellow subjects of 
every denomination, and more especially for those of all 
ranks who in the present commotions are engaged in pub- 
lic employments and stations, induces us earnestly to be- 
seech every individual in the most solemn manner to con- 
sider the end and tendency of the measures they are 
promoting, and on the most impartial inquiry into the state 
of their minds, carefully to examine whether they are act- 
ing in the fear of God and in conformity to the precepts 
and doctrines of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom we profess 
to believe in, and by whom alone we expect to be saved 
from our sins. 

The inhabitants of these provinces were long signally 
favored with peace and plenty. Have the returns of true 


126 Quakers in the Revolution. 


thankfulness been generally manifest? Have integrity and 
godly simplicity been maintained and religiously guarded? 
Have a religious care to do justly, love mercy, and walk 
humbly, been evident? Hath the precept of Christ to do 
unto others as we would they should do to us been the 
governing rule of our conduct? Hath an upright, impartial 
desire to prevent the slavery and oppression of our fellow- 
men, and to restore them to thair natural right, to true 
Christian liberty, been cherished and encouraged? Or have 
pride, wantonness, luxury and profaneness, a partial spirit, 
and forgetfulness of the goodness and mercies of God, be- 
come lamentably prevalent? Have we not therefore abund- 
ant occasion to break off from our sins by righteousness, and 
our iniquities by shewing mercy to the poor, and with true 
contrition and abasement of soul to humble ourselves and 
supplicate the Almighty Preserver of men to show favor, 
and to renew unto us a state of tranquility and peace? 

* * * * * * * * * 


We are so fully assured that these principles are the most 
certain and effectual means of preventing the extreme mis- 
ery and desolations of wars and bloodshed that we are con- 
strained to entreat all who profess faith in Christ, to mani- 
fest that they really believe in Him and desire to obtain 
the blessing He promised to the makers of peace. 

This spirit ever leads for and seeks to improve every 
opportunity of promoting peace and reconciliation, and con- 
stantly to remember that as we really confide in Him, He 
can in His own time change the hearts of all men in such 
manner, that the way to obtain it can often be opened con- 
trary to every human prospect or expectation. 

May we therefore heartily and sincerely unite in suppli- 
cation to the Father of Mercies, to grant the plentiful ef- 
fusions of his spirit to all, and in an especial manner to 
those in superior stations that they may with sincerity 
guard against, and reject all such measures and councils 
as may increase and perpetuate discord, animosities and un- 
happy conditions which now sorrowfully abound. 

The peculiar evidence of divine regard manifested to our 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 127 


ancestors in the founding and settlement of these provinces, 
we have often commemorated, and desire ever to remember 
with true thankfulness and reverent admiration. 

When we consider that at the time they were persecuted 
and subjected to severe sufferings as a people unworthy of 
the benefits of religious or civil society, the hearts of the 
kings and rulers under whom they thus suffered were in- 
clined to grant them these fruitful lands, and entrust them 
with charters of very extensive powers and privileges; that 
on their arrival here the minds of the natives were inclined 
to receive them with great hospitality and friendship, and 
to cede to them the most valuable part of their land on 
very easy terms; that while the principles of justice and 
mercy continued to preside they were preserved in tran- 
quility and peace free from the desolating calamities of 
war, and their endeavors were wonderfully blessed and 
prospered, so that the saying of the wisest king was sig- 
nally verified to them, ‘‘ When a man’s ways please the 
Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with 
him.” 

The benefits, advantages and favors we have experienced 
from our dependence and connection with the kings and 
government, under which we have enjoyed this happy state, 
appear to us to demand the greatest circumspection, care 
and constant endeavors to guard against every attempt to 
alter or subvert that dependence or connection. 

The scenes lately presented to our view, and the prospect 
before us, we are sensible are very distressing and dis- 
couraging; and though we lament that such amicable meas- 
ures as have been proposed, both here and in England, for 
the adjustment of the unhappy contests subsisting, have 
not yet been effectual, nevertheless we should rejoice to 
observe the continuance of mutual peaceable endeavors for 
effecting a reconciliation, having grounds to hope the divine 
favor and blessing will attend them. 

“Tt hath ever been our judgment and principle, since we 
were called to profess the light of Christ Jesus manifested 
in our consciences unto this day that the setting up and 
putting down kings and governments, is God’s peculiar pre- 


128 Quakers in the Revolution. 


rogative, for causes best known to himself; and that it is 
not our business to have any hand or continuance therein, 
nor to be busybodies above our station, much less to plot 
or contrive the ruin or overthrow of any of them, but to 
pray for the king and for the safety of our nation, and the 
good of all men; that we may live a peaceable and quiet 
life, in all godliness and lanesty, under the government 
which God is pleased to set over us.”—Ancient Testimony, 
1696, in Sewel’s History. 

May we therefore firmly unite in the abhorrence of all 
such writings and measures, as evidence a design to break 
off the happy connection we have heretofore enjoyed with 
the kingdom of Great Britain, and our just and necessary 
subordination to the king and those who are lawfully placed 
in authority under him, that thus the repeated solemn dec- 
larations made on this subject in the addresses sent to the 
king, on the behalf of the people of America in general, 
may be confirmed, and remain to be our firm and sincere 
intentions to observe and fulfill. 

JOHN PEMBERTON, Clerk. 


When the reports from the various Quarterly 
Meetings came up to the Yearly Meeting in the 
fall of 1775, it was evident that a large number 
had already violated the pacific principles of 
their Society. The clerk summarized the re- 
ports : 


All the accounts except that from Shrewsbury lament 
the sorrowful deviation which has lately appeared in many 
members from our peaceable profession and principles in 
joining with the multitude in warlike exercise, and instruct- 
ing themselves in the art of war which has occasioned pain- 
ful labor to the faithful among us whose care has been 
extended to advise and admonish those who are concerned 
therein. 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 129 


The Yearly Meeting therefore advised as 
follows : 


We have taken under weighty consideration the sorrow- 
ful account given of the public deviation of many professors 
of the truth among us from our ancient testimony against 
war, and being favored in our deliberations on this affecting 
subject with the calming influences of that love which de- 
sires and seeks for their convincement of their error and 
restoration, in order that our union and fellowship may 
be preserved, and a faithful testimony maintained to the 
excellency of the Gospel dispensation which breathes 
“Peace on earth and good will to men,” it is our united 
concern and desire that faithful friends in their respective 
meetings may speedily and earnestly labor in the strength 
of this love for the reclaiming of those who have thus 
deviated, and where it is necessary that Quarterly Meetings 
should appoint suitable friends to join their assistance in 
the performance of this weighty service, and where such 
brotherly labor is so slighted and disregarded, that by per- 
sisting in this violation, they manifest that they are not 
convinced of our Christian principles, or are actuated by a 
spirit and temper in opposition thereto, it is our duty to 
testify our disunion with them. 

And we also desire that all friends in this time of close 
probation would be careful in no part of their conduct to 
manifest an approbation or countenance to such things as 
are obviously contrary to our peaceable profession and prin- 
ciples, either as spectators or otherwise, at the same time 
avoiding to give just occasion of offence to any who do not 
make religious profession with us, manifesting that we are 
actuated solely by a conscientious principle and Christian 
spirit, agreeable to the repeated cautions and advice hereto- 
fore given forth by this meeting, our meeting for suffer- 
ings and the epistles from our brethren in Great Britain 
since the commencement of the troubles which have lately 
arisen, and continue to prevail in these colonies. 

Many friends have expressed that a religious objection 


130 Quakers in the Revolution. 


is raised in their minds against receiving or paying certain 
paper bills of credit lately issued expressly for the purpose 
of carrying on war, apprehending that it is a duty required 
of them to guard carefully against contributing thereto 
in any manner. 

We therefore fervently\desire that such who are not con- 
vinced that it is their duty to refuse those bills, may be 
watchful over their own spirits, and abide in true love and 
charity so that no expressions or conduct tending to the 
oppression of tender consciences may appear among us; 
and we likewise affectionately exhort those who have this 
religious scruple that they do not admit nor indulge cen- 
sure in their minds against their brethren who have not the 
same, carefully manifesting by the whole tenor of their 
conduct that nothing is done through strife or contention, 
but that they act from the clear convictions of truth in 
their own minds, showing forth by their meekness, humility 
and patient suffering that they are the followers of the 
Prince of Peace. 


The attitude taken by the Friends whose voices 
controlled the official conclusions of the body 
seems, as nearly as can be ascertained, to have 
been as follows: “We did not approve the pro- 
ceedings of the British ministry, which irritated 
the Americans; we thought them ill-advised, and, 
in view of their certain effects, wicked; we would 
have joined with our fellow-citizens in peaceful . 
legal resistance to them and have suffered, as we 
| have proven we are able to suffer, for the prin- 
ciples of liberty and justice. But we do not 
believe in revolutions, and we do not believe in 
war; we will not be a party to overturning the 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 131 


beneficent charter of William Penn, nor will we 
aid in throwing off our ultimate allegiance to the 
king of Great Britain. We, who largely made 
this Province what it is, and who have shown in 
the past our capacity for the peaceful mainten- 
ance of rights, are utterly opposed to the meas- 
ures now taken, and disavow all responsibility 
for them. We cannot take any part in the war, 
on one side or the other; we cannot recognize 
the revolutionary government, set up by illegal 
means, by holding office under it or by affirming 
allegiance to it; nor will we assist Britain in the 
unrighteous means taken to conquer rebellious 
Provinces; we are out of the whole business, and 
will give aid and comfort to neither party.” In 
one sense they were loyalists, and it is quite prob- 
able that the personal sympathies of many of 
them were with the British cause. But they 
were innocuous loyalists; they were neither spies 
on American movements nor did they flee for 
protection to British headquarters. They re- 
mained in their houses, asked to be considered 
as neutrals, and to have nothing to do with the 
“commotions” (a favorite word with them) 
existing. Something like this seems to have 
been the position taken by the meetings in their 
collective capacity, and this they undertook by 


132 Quakers in the Revolution. 


all ecclesiastical means to enforce on their mem- 
bership. 

This was, however, no easy task. There were 
a few active British abettors. They were 
promptly disowned. There were a great many 
who joined heartily with the American cause; 
and they shared the same fate. The monthly 
meetings were very busy during the whole period 
of the war in the proceedings against Friends 
who were unfaithful to their principles. At least 
one hundred and forty were “dealt with ” and 
“disowned” by two monthly meetings in the city 
of Philadelphia. The causes given were various: 
—“ Assuming a military appearance”; “ As- 
sociating with others in training and exercising 
to learn the art of war”; “ Acting as soldiers in 
the American army”; “ Making a voyage in 
a ship of war, fitted out from this place, in the 
course of which he had been concerned in seizing 
and taking away from English subjects their 
property ”; “ Taking money for warlike services 
of slaves” ; “Joining the British army ”* ; 
“ Joining the American army, and attending a 
play”; “ Accepting offices in the American 
army”; “ Associating in warlike exercise, and 


* One case only, so far as known. 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 133 


accepting an employment to build a fort in South 
Carolina” ; “Fitting out a vessel for trade, 
provided to repel in a warlike way any attack 
which might be made upon it, which has been 
attended with sorrowful consequences in shed- 
ding human blood and loss of life” ; “ Being 
concerned with others in carrying on a trade in 
the river Delaware with a vessel fitted in a war- 
like manner”; “ Fitting out an armed vessel, 
which may prove the cause of shedding human 
blood”; “ Paying fines in lieu of personal mili- 
tary service” ; “ Purposely placing money be- 
fore a person who was about seizing his effects 
to satisfy a fine imposed on him in lieu of mili- 
tary service” ; “Dealing in prize goods, and 
fighting in the public streets”; “Making 
weapons of war formed for the destruction of his 
fellow-men” ; “Associating with others to en- 
courage informations and accusations against 
such fellow-citizens as, through the heats and 
animosities subsisting, were become the objects 
of party resentment, and by serving as a juryman 
in the trial and condemnation of a fellow-mem- 
ber in religious profession, who suffered death 
in this city under a law which appears to us 
adapted to the views and temper of men actuated 
by the spirit of war rather than founded on true 


134 Quakers in the Revolution. 


justice and the principles of Christianity ” ; 
“Uniting himself by a test or declaration of al- 
legiance to one ofthe contending parties now at 
war”; “Taking a test of allegiance to one and 
an abjuration of the other of the contending par- 
ties now at war”; “Enlisting as an artificer in 
a military employ”; “ Being in an engage 
ment where many were slain”; “ Holding a 
commission for furnishing supplies to one of the 
parties engaged in strife and war”; “ Engag- 
ing in military employment on board a ship of 
war”; “ Appearing with arms, and assisting 
in taking several persons from their dwellings in 
a warlike manner”; “ Purchasing a horse that 
was taken as a prize”; “ Assisting in laying a 
tax for military purposes”; “ Countenancing 
the fine gatherers by taking some receipts which 
had been given for forage taken by the army in 
lieu of personal military service” ; “ Offering 
duplicates in order for the collection of taxes, 
part of which is a fine for not taking the test 
(so-called) ” ; “Countenancing the payment of 
a demand for the releasing of his cow that was 
seized for a substitute fine”; “Selling prize 
rum which his son got by privateering”’ ; 
“Paying a fine for refusing to collect taxes for 
military purposes” ; “ Meeting militia on mus- 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 135 


ter days”; “ Paying taxes for hiring men to 
go to war.” ¢ 

The difficulty was greatest in 1775 when war 
first broke out. The monthly meetings reported 
in many cases in substance as follows : 

A sorrowful defection lately appears in a number of our 
young people who, disregarding our ancient testimony and 
the peaceable spirit of the Gospel, have in the present time 
of outward commotion associated with others in training 


to learn the military exercises. Their cases are mostly un- 
der care. 


One of the first cases taken up was Thomas 
Mifflin’s. In March, 1775, he was reported to 
the Monthly Meeting of Philadelphia “ for join- 
ing with and promoting measures pursued by 
the people for arresting their civil privileges in 
such a manner as is inconsistent with our peace- 
able profession and principles.” Four months 
later, when judgment was reached, he had added 
other causes. He was aidede-camp to General 
Washington, and the meeting testified: 

Thomas Mifflin, of this city, merchant, who hath pro- 
fessed to be a member of our religious Society, having for 
a considerable time past been active in the promotion of 
military measures, it became our concern and care to en- 
deavor to convince him of the inconsistency of his conduct 
with our peaceable principles, but he declaring himself not 
convinced of our Christian testimony against wars and fight- 


ings, and persisting therein, whereby he hath separated 
himself from religious fellowship with us, we are under 


136 Quakers in the Revolution. 


a necessity to declare that we cannot esteem him to be a 
member of our religious society until by the illumination 
of Divine Grace he is further convinced and becomes de- 
sirous of being truly united in religious fellowship with us, 
to which state we desire he may attain. 


These hopes were never fulfilled. Mifflin 
served with distinction on Long Island and at 
Trenton, and became Major-General in 1777. 
In 1788 he was made President of Pennsylvania, 
and was a member of the Convention which 
framed the Constitution of the United States. 
From 1790 to 1799 he was Governor of Pennsy]- 
vania. Except for a loss of prestige arising from 
his supposed sympathy with Conway’s Cabal he 
had a distinguished career, which, however, 
showed but little trace of his Quaker education. 

As in this case, the assumption usually was 
that the offender against the rules of Society had 
separated himself by his own actions, and the 
minute was simply a public record of the fact, 
coupled with a hope for his future restoration. 

There were the usual number of other offences, 
moral and ecclesiastical, which also had to be 
attended to, so that the diminution in numbers 
between 1775 and 1781 must have been consid- 
erable, and the sufferers being mainly young 
men, the loss to the future was serious. Some 
of them became penitent and returned, making 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 137 


due acknowledgments, in years to come, but 
many were permanently lost. 

It was undoubtedly a serious matter to be 
banned in this way. There was not in those 
days the easy passage from sect to sect we now 
have, and the marked peculiarities of the Friends 
in beliefs and customs, many of which they 
would adhere to after disownment, made them 
feel as strangers in any other church habitation. 
When the war was over they would naturally 
look back longingly to their old friends, to whom 
they were drawn by many intellectual and social 
ties. 

In addition, the question of slavery was being 
now forced to an issue with the individual mem- 
bers. While the Revolutionary War was raging 
the last slaves were disappearing among Friends. 
After years of advice and entreaty, which had 
been largely successful, the yearly meeting had 
concluded, in 1776, to force the issue with the 
few remaining slave-holders. They had wilfully 
stood out against the prolonged labors of their 
friends and the directions of their meetings, and 
one by one their cases were considered and they, 
if still obdurate, disowned. Hence we find such 
minutes as this almost the last on record : 


138 Quakers in the Revolution. 


In the course of our labors for restoring the oppressed 
negroes to the possession of that liberty to which they are 
entitled equally with) ourselves, and which we are fully sen- 
sible is their just due agreeable to the conclusion of our 
Yearly Meeting, it became our concern to treat with 
on account of a negro woman which he persists 
to retain in thraldom in order to make him sensible of the 
duty which is incumbent on him to restore her to that 
natural right of freedom which through the prevalence of 
unrighteous custom she has hitherto been deprived of, but 
our repeated labors of love not availing, and he continuing 
to withhold from her her just right from a mistaken ap- 
prehension that it is more for her advantage as well as for 
her own security that she should remain in subjection to 
him, after long and repeated treating with him on this im- 
portant subject we find ourselves constrained on the behalf 
of truth and justice to declare that we cannot hold the said 
in religious fellowship with us until he con- 
sents to restore the said negro woman to her just and 
natural right which we must desire for his own sake (as 
his time in this world cannot be long), and also for the 
reputation of truth he may speedily be induced to do. 


The Yearly Meeting could report, in the fall 
of 1776 : 


That labor has been extended to such who have violated 
our Christian testimony against war, by associating to exer- 
cise and learn the use of warlike weapons, many of whom 
have been declared to have separated themselves from re- 
ligious fellowship with us, and others in this practice are 
under the care and dealing of the respective Monthly Meet- 
ings. 


in 1776 the Yearly Meeting sent out some 


general advices : 


Being by the continued mercy of the Almighty Preserver 
of men favored with another opportunity of meeting to- 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 139 


gether in peace and quietness, our minds are impressed with 
reverent thankfulness to him, (and) engaged in much broth- 
erly love and sympathy to salute you; earnestly desiring 
that, in this time of affliction and adversity, we may be 
fervently concerned to improve so great a blessing with 
humble and thankful hearts, and to manifest our constant 
care for the building up each other in that faith which 
works by love. 

Under this exercise, we are constrained to entreat and 
exhort all-to keep near to the divine principle which will 
lead us from the love of the world, its spirits and maxims, 
into a life of self-denial and humility, in conformity to the 
precepts and example of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom 
we are taught that wrath, contention, wars and fighting 
are unlawful, and that meekness, patience and universal 
love to mankind will be rewarded with peace, passing the 
understanding of the carnal mind which is not subject to 
the law of God, and in which those who abide, cannot 
please him. 

* * * * * * * * * 

And, dear friends, as we profess to be followers of the 
Prince of Peace, and our principles have led us to declare, 
that we place no confidence nor dependence in the arm 
of flesh, we earnestly exhort each individual to cease from 
man, whose breath is in his nostrils; for wherein is he to 
be accounted of? And as deep trials, sufferings and revil- 
ings may be permitted to come upon us, let us bear the rod 
and him who hath appointed it, and not seek for or expect 
deliverance by the hand of man, but endeavor to get into 
that humble, meek, quiet, peaceable spirit, which beareth 
all things, and when it is reviled, revileth not again, but 
suffereth patiently; and have our eye single to Christ, the 
Captain of our salyation, who is alone able to work de- 
liverance for us in his own time. 

Under the affliction and sorrow we painfully feel for the 
deviation of some, who have made profession with us, from 
our peaceable principles, we have renewed cause with thank- 
fulness to acknowledge that a large number of hopeful 
youth, appear united with us in a living concern for the 


140 Quakers in the Revolution. 


cause and testimony of truth, and the keeping to the good 
order of that excellent discipline which our ancestors were 
enabled to establish, and which as it is rightly adminis- 
tered, we have found to be as a hedge about us. We fer: 
vently desire all such may be strengthened and confirmed 
in holy resolutions to wait for that wisdom which is profita- 
ble to direct in the maintaining of it, over all backsliders 
and transgressors, who after being treated with in the 
spirit of meekness, cannot be reclaimed. 

Many seasonable admonitions, exhortations and cautions 
suitable to the circumstances of these perilous times, having 
been given forth by our brethren in G. Britain last year 
and since by our Meeting for Sufferings, we affectionately 
recommend to the renewed consideration of them and of the 
minutes of this meeting last year. As the lust of worldly 
honor and power hath been productive of the calamities 
and distresses to which we are now subjected, we are in- 
cited by a sincere concern for the welfare of our brethren, 
and their prosperity in the truth, to intreat them, dur- 
ing the present commotions and unsettled state of affairs, 
to decline from having any share in the authority and 
powers of government; and to circumscribe themselves 
within plain and narrow bounds, it being our united sense 
and judgment that none of our brethren in religious pro- 
fession should be concerned in electing or being elected to 
public places of honor, trust or profit, believing that such 
who disregard our counsel and advice herein, are in danger 
of being ensnared and suffering loss, and may become in- 
struments of misleading others from that quiet and peace- 
able life we should endeavor to lead in Godliness and hon- 
esty agreeable to the exhortation of the apostle. 

And as the distresses of many in divers parts of this con- 
tinent are now very great and daily increasing, we earnestly 
recommend to friends in general, and particularly to those 
who have received the increase of earthly possessions, to 
be religiously careful to avoid all unnecessary expenses, and 
to be ready to distribute and communicate towards the 
relief of their suffering brethren, not only of our own, but 
to every other society and denomination; and that a spirit 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 141 


of benevolence and true charity with a desire and care to 
be faithful stewards of the manifold blessings and favors 
conferred upon us, may increase and prevail among us. 


* + * * * * * * * 


And as our forefathers were often led to commemorate 
the many instances of divine favor conferred upon them 
through the difficulties they encountered in settling in the 
wilderness, let us be like minded with them, and if after 
a long time of enjoying the fruits of their labors and par- 
taking of the blessings of peace and plenty we should be 
restrained or deprived of some of our rights and privileges, 
let us carefully guard against being drawn into the vindi- 
cation of them, and seeking redress by any measures which 
are not consistent with our religious profession and prin- 
ciples nor with the Christian patience manifested by our 
ancestors in such times of trial; and we fervently desire all 
may impartially consider whether we have manifested that 
firmness in our love to the cause of truth and universal 
righteousness which is required of us, and that we may 
unite in holy resolutions to seek the Lord in sincerity and 
to wait upon him daily for wisdom to order our conduct 
hereafter in all things to his praise. 

And beloved friends, we beseech you in brotherly affec- 
tion, to remember that as under divine providence we are 
indebted to the king and his royal ancestors for the con- 
tinued favor of enjoying our religious liberty, we are under 
deep obligations to manifest our loyalty and fidelity, 
and that we should discourage every attempt which may 
be made by any to excite disaffection or disrespect to him, 
and particularly to manifest our dislike to all such writings 
as are or may be published of that tendency. 

And as it hath ever been our practice since we were a 
people to advise all professing with us to be careful not to 
defraud the king of his customs and duties nor to be con- 
cerned in dealing in goods unlawfully imported, we find 
it necessary now most earnestly to exhort that the same 
care may be continued with faithfulness and diligence, and 
that friends keep clear of purchasing any such goods either 


142 Quakers in the Revolution. 


for sale or private use; that so we may not be in any way 
instrumental in countenancing or promoting the iniquity, 
false swearing anY violence which are the common conse- 
quences of an unlawful and clandestine trade. 


The Meeting for Sufferings, under date of 
Twelfth month 20th, 1776, issued an address to 
Friends, upon which serious charges of disaffec- 
tion to the American cause were afterwards 
based, resulting disastrously to a number of im- 
portant members. The old Constitution of Penn 
had first been annulled, and the advice was prac- 
tically to disobey the new one, under authority 
of which subscription to tests of allegiance was 
demanded. It would have been most remark- 
able had the government passed over such an 
issue. 


Thus we may with Christian firmness withstand and re- 
fuse to submit to the arbitrary injunctions and ordinances 
of men, who assume to themselves the power of compelling 
others, either in person or by other assistance, to join in 
carrying on war and of prescribing modes of determining 
Concerning our religious principles, by imposing tests not 
warranted by the precepts of Christ, or the laws of the 
happy constitution under which we and others long en- 
joyed tranquility and peace. 


The issue was definitely joined. By all the 
authority possessed by the representative bodies, 
Friends were admonished not only to avoid tak- 
ing up arms, but also not to recognize the gov- 


The Early Years of the Revolution. 143 


ernment formed on the ruins of the old charter, 
by accepting any office under it or making any 
promises of allegiance to it. _We are now sure 
that this refusal was based on conscientious ob- 
jections to being forced to declare themselves by 
a power, the legality of which they were not wil- 
ling to accept, and was unaccompanied by any 
treasonable connection with the British army. 
These facts must have been known by some of 
the Pennsylvanians, but hardly by other mem- 
bers of the Continental Congress, and it is not to 
be wondered at that the leaders of Friends were 
classed with the dangerous Tories and treated 
accordingly. 

The meetings, however, so far as appears from 
their minutes, were practically agreed on this 
policy, and Philadelphia Monthly Meeting was 
able to report in 1777, “ We hope love and unity 
are on the increase among us.” 

The country meetings did not fail to respond 
to the action of their Philadelphia brethren. 
Chester Monthly Meeting, which embraced the 
larger part of what is now Delaware County, 
which afterwards lost about seventy members by 
disownment for military or political offences 
during the war, agreed to carry out the policy 


144 Quakers in the Revolution. 


in its entirety. In 1775 they adopted this ad- 
vice : \ 


An epistle from the Meeting for Sufferings was read, 
containing some good advice respecting the present situa- 
tion of public affairs, and a testimony from said meeting 
against every usurpation of power and authority in oppo- 
sition to the laws and government, and against all com- 
binations, insurrections, conspiracies and illegal assemblies; 
which this meeting taking with solid consideration doth 
conclude that all members belonging to this meeting that 
do in any measure countenance or abet anything contrary 
to our religious principles ought speedily to be treated with 
by overseers and preparative meetings, 


The Virginia Exiles. 145 


CHAPTER VIL. 


THE VIRGINIA EXILES. 


Late in 1776 the war, which had hitherto been 
mainly confined to New England and New York, 
approached Philadelphia. “These are the times 
that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine. 
Washington, with the wreck of an army, re- 
treated across Jersey, closely followed by the 
British under Sir William Howe. 

In Philadelphia there was great excitement. 
Galloway and other loyalists joined the British. 
The roads leading from the city were crowded 
with fugitives seeking places of safety. The 
sick of Washington’s army were brought into the 
city almost naked, and were lodged in the 
vacated houses. Every effort was made to 
arouse the spirit of resistance by accounts of the 
barbarities practised by the British troops in the 
march through the Jerseys. Congress, then 
sitting in Philadelphia, adjourned to Baltimore. 

The daring and successful night attack of 
Washington on the Hessians at Trenton, and 
his magnificent campaign following, when, with 
a raw and inefficient army, he outgeneraled 


146 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Howe and drove him back to New York, 
removed for\a time the danger to the Quaker 
City. The American army hovered about be 
tween Philadelphia and New York during the 
early half of 1777, uncertain of the plans of the 
British general. On the 25th of August, he 
revealed his purpose by landing at Elk Ferry, in 
the Chesapeake, with the evident intention of 
attacking Philadelphia from the south. Wash- 
ington marched through the city, making the 
best show he could with his poorly-armed and 
ragged troops, and on the 11th of September met 
the British army under Cornwallis, at Chadd’s 
Ford, on the Brandywine. In this quiet farm- 
ing country, settled almost exclusively by 
Friends, around the old Birmingham Meeting- 
House, was fought one of the bloodiest battles 
of the war. Washington was defeated by a 
flank attack, led by Cornwallis, who crossed the 
stream about five miles above the Ford, and met 
the American army hastily drawn up to face 
them at the meeting-house. The Americans 
lost 1,000 men, the British about half as many. 
; The latter followed the retreating, but not de- 
moralized, Americans to the Schuylkill. After 
two weeks’ manceuvering Howe’s army suc- 


BIRMINGHAM MEETING-HOUSE. 


USED AS A HOSPITAL BY TITE AMERICANS BEFORE AND THE BRITISH AFTER THE BATTLE 
Behind the Graveyard Wall on the Left the Americans Awaited the Attack of the British. 


e 


The Virginia Exiles. 147 


ceeded in crossing the stream, and on the 25th 
encamped at Germantown. 

Congress departed in haste to Lancaster, and 
a detachment of British troops took possession of 
the city. The people, an old account states, 
generally “appeared sad and serious.” This 
may be partly accounted for by the following 
minute of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting : 


The 26th Day of the 9 month 1777 being the day in course 
for holding our monthly meeting a number of friends met 
when the present situation of things being considered and 
it appearing that the Kings Army are near entering the 
city, at which time it may be proper the inhabitants should 
generally be at their habitations, in order to preserve as 
much as possible peace and good order on this solemn 
occasion it is therefore proposed to adjourn the mo. mtg. 
&e. 


The attack on Germantown, where the main 
body of the British were encamped, showed the 
world that the spirit of the Americans was not 
quelled. This was only temporarily successful, 
and the two armies settled down in winter quar- 
ters, Washington and his troops to endure the 
sufferings of Valley Forge, while Howe and his 
officers held high revel in Philadelphia; his 
men being comfortably quartered in the numer- 
ous unoccupied houses and stores. The capture 
of the forts on the Delaware made them largely 
independent of the neighboring country, where 


148 Quakers in the Revolution. 


foraging parties of the Americans greatly inter- 
fered with their supplies and a winter of gaiety 
and revelry followed. If the Friends had any 
disposition to look upon the king’s troops on 
their entrance as settling their allegiance on a 
stronger basis, they changed their minds before 
the winter was over. Their influence hitherto 
had kept the city decorous and reasonably moral, 
and they were shocked at the laxity which now 
for the first time invaded the city of Penn. 
Drunken soldiers destroyed the quiet of the 
nights, cock-fighting and gambling were openly 
sanctioned by Sir William Howe, and the young 
Philadelphians, making common cause with the 
dissipated British officers, were ruined in morals 
and purses, while stage-plays and balls, club- 
meetings and horse-races, followed each other in 
rapid succession. It was a difficult time for the 
Friends, who were probably one-fifth of the pop- 
ulation, and who were in general in fairly com- 
fortable circumstances, to maintain their stand- 
ards of living among their young men. 

The probability of a French army of attack 
coming to America made the permanent occupa- 
tion of Philadelphia impossible, and on the 18th 
of June, 1778, Sir Henry Clinton, who had sup- 
erseded Howe, evacuated the city and marched 


The Virginia Exiles. 149 


across Jersey. Washington promptly started in 
pursuit, fought the battles of Princeton and 
Monmouth, and had the satisfaction of accelerat- 
ing the retreat and finally seeing the British 
army embark for New York city. 

The out-and-out Tories left the city with the 
British. The Friends remained in their houses, 
as they had done when the invaders entered. 
They suffered from both parties—the most, 
however, from the Americans for their unwil- 
lingness to join in the national defence. Their 
policy was to remain quiet and take what came 
to them without giving military aid to either 
party or acting as spies upon either. 

When the American army regained possession 
of the city it was placed in command of Benedict 
Arnold, who proceeded to enrich himself by con- 
fiscating the property of the Tories, and by his 
marriage with Peggy Shippen, the daughter of 
a prominent loyalist. The National and State 
Congresses resumed their sessions. Wild spec- 
ulation and gross extravagance, to which the 
depreciated condition of the paper currency was 
a stimulus, pervaded the city. The State Gov- 
ernment, under the new Constitution, was in the 
hands of new men, who did not receive the con- 
fidence of the more substantial people. The 


150 Quakers in the Revolution. 


town was full of desperate characters. Its 
beauty was destroyed, its trees cut down for fire- 
wood, its suburbs burned, its streets filthy, its 
houses denuded of furniture. There were the 
bitterest feelings against Tories of all grades, and 
two victims, of whom more presently, were hung 
to appease the popular fury. A mob which 
threatened to hang all Quakers, Tories and spec- 
ulators was for a time in possession of the city. 
The “ Constitutionalists,” as the extreme revo- 
lutionists were called, resolved to drive out every 
vestige of loyalism. The college founded by 
Franklin—now the University of Pennsylvania 
—had its charter annulled, and a new one, sup- 
posed to be more favorable to the prevailing 
powers, was created in its place, which had only 
the effect of bringing into existence two rival 
weaklings and destroying the medical school, 
then just establishing its great history. 

In this disturbed, unhealthy state, Philadel- 
phia remained until the end of the war. It was 
no time for the Quakers to have anything to do 
with government, and they wisely refrained 
from making any attempt. 

The city Friends had to bear the brunt of the 
trouble. Those in the country were disturbed 
by the actual passage of the armies and of forag- 


The Virginia Exiles. 151 


ing parties in 1777 and 1778, but at other times 
they tilled their fields in personal security. 

About one-fifth of the adult male Friends in 
Philadelphia had joined the American army, or 
taken places under the revolutionary govern- 
ment. A very small number had as openly es- 
poused the cause of the King. The large major- 
ity, including the more representative Friends, 
with varying sympathies, had kept straight to the 
advice of their Yearly Meeting in favor of neu- 
trality and non-participation. Dr. Fothergill 
wrote : 


Be quiet and mind your own business; promote every 
good work. Show yourselves subject to that overruling 
Providence which guides all things for the good of that im- 
mortal part which is made to subsist not only after all 
these transient outrages are at an end but through endless 


ages. 


When news arrived of the landing of the Eng- 
lish army on the Chesapeake, Congress, then in 
session at Philadelphia, recommended : 


That the Executive officers of the State of Pennsyl- 
vania be requested to cause all persons notoriously dis- 
affected forthwith to be disarmed and secured until such 
time as they may be released without injury to the common 
cause. That it be recommended to the Supreme Executive 
Council of the State of Pennsylvania to cause diligent 
search to be made in the houses of all inhabitants of the 
city of Philadelphia, who have not manifested their at- 
tachment to the American cause, for firearms, swords, 
bayonets, etc. 


152 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Three days later they further advise : 


That the several testimonies which have been published 
since the commencement of the present contest betwixt 
G. Britain and America, and the uniform tenor of the 
conduct, and conversation of a number of persons of consid- 
erable wealth, who profess themselves to belong to the 
society of people commonly called Quakers, render it certain 
and notorious that those persons are, with much rancor and 
bitterness, disaffected to the American cause; that, as 
these persons will have it in their power, so there is 
no doubt it will be their inclination, to communicate intel- 
ligence to the enemy, and, in various other ways, to in- 
jure the counsels and arms of America: 

That when the enemy, in the month of December, 1776, 
were bending their progress towards the city of Philadel- 
phia, a certain seditious publication, addressed “To our 
friends and brethren in religious profession in these and 
the adjacent provinces,” signed John Pemberton, in and on 
behalf of the meeting of sufferings held at Philadelphia for 
Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the 26th of the 12th month, 
1776, was published, and, as your committee is credibly in- 
formed, circulated amongst many members of the so- 
ciety called Quakers, throughout the different states: 

That, as the seditious paper aforesaid originated in the 
city of Philadelphia, and as the persons whose names are 
under-mentioned, have uniformly manifested a disposition 
highly inimical to the cause of America, therefore, 

Resolved, That it be earnestly recommended to the su- 
preme executive council of the state of Pennsylvania, forth- 
with to apprehend and secure the persons of Joshua Fisher, 
Abel James, James Pemberton, Henry Drinker, Israel Pem- 
berton, John James, Samuel Pleasants, Thomas Wharton, 
sen., Thomas Fisher, son of Joshua, and Samuel Fisher, son 
of Joshua, together with all such papers in their posses- 
sion as may be of a political nature. 

And whereas, there is strong reason to apprehend that 
these persons maintain a correspondence and connexion 


The Virginia Eziles. 153 


highly prejudicial to the public safety, not only in this state 
but in the several states of America. 

Resolved. That it be recommended to the executive pow- 
ers of the respective states, forthwith to apprehend and se- 
cure all persons, as well among the people called Quakers 
as others, who have, in their general conduct and conversa- 
tion, evidenced a disposition inimical to the cause of 
America; and that the persons so seized, be confined in 
such places, and treated in such manner, as shall be con- 
sistent with their respective characters and security of 
their persons: 

That the records and papers of the meetings of sufter- 
ings in the respective states be forthwith secured and care- 
fully examined, and that such parts of them as may be of 
a political nature, be forthwith transmitted to Congress. 


Under cover of these resolutions the Council 
proceeded to arrest about forty people, more for 
the purpose of striking terror into British sym- 
pathizers than anything else. There was no 
trial, or even hearing. They were merely hur- 
ried into confinement, their houses searched, 
their desks broken open in a search for compro- 
mising papers, and a parole, including a promise 
to remain in their houses demanded of them. 
Some of them gave it, others, including all the 
Quakers, refused. 

The authorities, therefore, had on their hands 
a company of about twenty people of irreproach- 
able character, highly respected in all the rela- 
tions of private life, against whom no definite 
charges could be preferred, but who refused even 


154 Quakers in the Revolution. 


to promise good behavior if allowed to remain at 
their homes.‘ They said they had committed no 
offences, and that it was an outrage to throw 
citizens into jail without a charge, and present 
a test to them, as if they had ever been guilty of 
misconduct, and could be suspected for the fu- 
ture. 

There was undoubtedly considerable popular 
outery against them, due in part to general sus- 
picions, in part to the epistles of the meetings, 
more especially that of the Meeting for Suffer- 
ings, the objectionable paragraph of which has 
already been given in a previous page, and in 
part to the publication of a curious paper said to 
have been captured by General Sullivan on 
Staten Island with the British baggage, which 
was considered evidence of treasonable corre- 
spondence with the enemy. 

This paper began with eight questions relating 
to the position of the American troops, and 
under the head of “Information from Jersey, 
19 August, 1777,” gave as a partial answer to 
them : 


It is said General Howe landed near the head of Chesa- 
peake Bay but can not learn the particular spot or when. 

Washington lays in Pennsylvania about twelve miles from 
Coryell’s Ferry. 


The Virginia Exiles. 155 


Sullivan lays about six miles north of Morristown with 
about 2,000 men. 
Spanktown Yearly Meeting. 


Then, in a postscript dated nine days later, 
was added information of the southward march 
of the various divisions of the army, with the 
number of each. 

The only circumstance connecting the 
Quakers with the matter was the subscription 
“Spanktown Yearly Meeting.” There was, of 
course, no such yearly meeting, but Spanktown 
was a name sometimes applied to Rahway, where 
there was a Quarterly Meeting. The absurdity 
of an organized meeting being engaged in spy- 
ing out the proceedings of the American army 
and signing its name did not save the report from 
receiving considerable credence. It was quickly 
pointed out that the 19th of August was several 
days before the landing, as was also the 22d, 
the date of the capture by Sullivan, and that the 
signature of a mythical yearly meeting to an 
otherwise unrecognizable letter was no proof of 
Quaker origin. Indeed, so far as the authorities 
were concerned, after a little investigation the 
matter was apparently allowed to drop, and the 
charges were based on the general belief in the 
English sympathies of the prisoners and the de- 


156 Quakers in the Revolution. 


liverances of the meetings. Spanktown, how- 
ever, had a\ prominent place in the ephemeral 
literature of the day, and the incident undoubt- 
edly intensified the anti-Quaker feeling of the 
people, who apparently believed that every 
Quaker meeting was a centre of treasonable plot- 
ting and correspondence. 

The searching of the prisoners’ desks produced 
nothing except the minutes of the meetings, 
which were taken and printed by order of Con- 
gress and were with some difficulty regained. 
They contained only what the reader has already 
seen—nothing more compromising than the gen- 
eral advice to take no part in the revolution. 
There were no evidences of correspondence with 
the enemy, and we must believe James Pember- 
ton when he writes to Robert Morris from Vir- 
ginia : 

I can with much firmness and truth assert my innocence 
of having given any occasion for the hard treatment I have 
received from this unnatural banishment. . . . From a mind 
conscious of integrity and innocence I can unreservedly 
declare that I have never had at any time the least corre- 
spondence with General Howe or any British commander 
or others concerned in the military operations against 
America nor do I intend to have; I hope my general con- 
duct and conversation have evidenced me a friend to 
mankind and my country, and I am restrained from a pure 
principle of conscience in doing anything to promote con- 


tention, war & bloodshed among men whose universal wel- 
fare I much desire. 


The Virginia Exiles. 157 


The prisoners were allowed to receive their 
friends with great freedom, and made the most 
use of their few days of captivity to remonstrate 
on all sides against their arrest. The first protest 
was addressed to the Supreme Executive Council 
of Pennsylvania, by whose order they were im- 
prisoned: “ We are advised, and from our own 
knowledge of our rights and privileges as free- 
men are assured, that your issuing of this order 
is arbitrary, unjust and illegal, and therefore we 
believe it is our duty, in clear and express terms, 
to remonstrate against it.” A more lengthy and 
formal protest, signed by all the prisoners, fol- 
lowed a little later, ending with the paragraphs: 


In the name therefore of the whole body of the freemen 
of Pennsylvania, whose liberties are radically struck at, by 
this arbitrary imprisonment of us their unoffending fellow 
citizens we demand an audience that so our innocence may 
appear and persecution give place to justice. 

But if regardless of every sacred obligation by which 
men are bound to each other in society, and by that Con- 
stitution by which you profess to govern, which you have 
so loudly magnified for the free spirit it breathes you are 
still determined to proceed, be the appeal to the righteous 
people of all the earth for the integrity of our hearts and 
the unparalleled tyranny of your measures. 


These papers produced no effect on the Coun- 
cil, even to the extent of granting a public hear- 
ing, so the prisoners addressed Congress in a sim- 
ilar vein, asseverating their innocence of any 


158 Quakers in the Revolution. 


treasonable actions, their unshaken conviction 
that all warS are unlawful for Christians, and a 
willingness to suffer anything in support of this 
testimony. 

Following this they issued a printed “ Address 
to the Inhabitants of Pennsylvania,” in which 
they recapitulated the history of their arrest and 
detention : 


But a few days since the scene opened and we the sub- 
scribers were called upon by persons, not known as public 
officers of justice to put our names to a paper “ promising 
not to depart from our dwelling houses, and to be ready to 
appear on the demand of the President and Council of the 
State of Pennsylvania and to engage to refrain from doing 
anything injurious to the United free states of North 
America by speaking, writing or otherwise, and from giv- 
ing intelligence to the commander of the British forces, or 
any other person whatever concerning public affairs.” 

Conscious of our innocence in respect to the charges in- 
sinuated in this paper against us, and unwilling to part 
with the liberty of breathing the free air, and following 
our lawful business beyond the narrow limits of our houses, 
disclaiming to be considered in so odious a light as men 
who by crimes had forfeited our common and inherent 
rights, we refused to become voluntary prisoners and re- 
jected the proposal. 


The Council’s answer to these various appeals 
was to resolve : 


That such of the persons now confined in the Lodge as 
shall take & subscribe the oath or affirmation ...... to wit: 

“J do swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear 
true allegiance to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as 
a free and independent State ” shall be discharged. 


The Virginia Exiles. 159 


To this suggestion they replied : 


Tf you had a right to make such a proposition we think 
it very improper to be made to men in our situation. You 
have first deprived us of our liberty on one pretence which 
finding you are not able to justify you waive and require 
of us as a condition of our enlargement that we should 
confess ourselves men of suspicious characters by doing 
what ought not to be expected by innocent persons. 


After another solemn declaration of innocence, 
signed alike by Friends and Episcopalians, of any 
correspondence with the British forces, they 
could do nothing more than to accept the deci- 
sion of the Council, which was: 


That the persons whose names are mentioned above be 
without further delay removed to Staunton in Virginia 
there to be treated according to their characters and sta- 
tions so far as may be consistent with the security of their 
persons. 


With the exception of the substitution of Win- 
chester for Staunton, this sentence was carried 
out, notwithstanding that a writ of habeas corpus 
was allowed by Chief Justice McKean, which the 
State authorities chose to disregard. 

The whole proceeding was, of course, grossly 
illegal, but Sir William Howe and his army were 
approaching the city, and the measure was jus- 
tified in the opinion of Congress and the Council 
by military necessity. 

It is difficult to see what was gained. The 


160 Quakers in the Revolution. 


arrest certainly did not conciliate or intimidate 
other Quakers; it did not interfere in the slight- 
est degree with the plans of the British. It did 
please the enemies of the Quakers, long in a 
hopeless minority in the Province, and again and 
again defeated, but now in power. It satisfied a 
body of extreme “ Constitutionalists,” which not 
only had old grudges to pay against Quakers and 
churchmen, the Pembertons and Provost Smith, 
but were striving also to discredit positive revolu- 
tionists of a moderate class like Robert Morris 
and James Wilson. It sent into banishment for 
eight months a company of the best men of 
Philadelphia, whose fault was that they had 
urged their fellow-members not to violate the 
long-established principles of their church 
against war and revolution, and they must be 
slow to appreciate Quaker character and Quaker 
history who could believe that persecution would 
weaken their hold on these principles. It only 
induced them to close up their ranks and trust 
their dogmas more implicitly. 

By the time the involuntary emigrants were 
ready to start the number had simmered down to 
twenty, of whom seventeen were Friends. Some 
had declared their allegiance and been dis- 
charged. The twenty were Israel, James and 


The Virgima Exiles. 161 


John Pemberton, Thomas Wharton, Thomas, 
Miers, and Samuel Fisher, John Hunt, Edward 
Penington, Henry Drinker, Samuel Jervis, 
Thomas Affleck, William Drewett Smith, 
Charles Pleasants, Owen Jones, Jr., Thomas 
Gilpin, Thomas Pike, William Smith, Elijah 
Brown and Charles Eddy. They were loaded 
into wagons and conveyed through Reading and 
Carlisle to Winchester, where they were retained 
in a very loose confinement, and allowed to select 
their own boarding houses, for the State refused 
any appropriation for the expenses. Indeed, 
upon their release in the spring the Council or- 
dered. 

That the whole expenses of arresting and confining the 
prisoners sent to Virginia, the expenses of their journey 


and all other incidental charges be paid by the said pris- 
oners. 


The prisoners refused to give any promises, 
but soon gained the confidence of their keepers 
and were told that they might go where they 
pleased within six miles of Winchester. They 
attended meetings, strengthened their brethren, 
received their friends and wrote abundant let- 
ters. They kept a joint journal, which has been 
published. They softened the harsh feelings 
with which they were received by the people, 
and were accused of influencing the neighbor- 


162 Quakers in the Revolution. 


hood against the acceptance of Continental 
money. ‘The country afforded few comforts, 
and some of them were men who were hardly 
able to afford the expenses of transportation—a 
great matter in those days. Their families were 
within the lines of two armies, and were seldom 
heard from, and some were sick. The affair— 
while it might have been worse—was a serious 
deprivation to all of them. 

The haste with which their banishment was 
decreed, and the uncertainty as to its duration, 
prevented a sufficient supply of clothing being 
taken by some of them, and that inclement win- 
ter, which caused such suffering at Valley Forge, 
did not leave untouched the Virginia exiles, used, 
as many of them were, to the solace of Philadel- 
phia homes—then the most comfortable, if not 
the most luxurious, of the continent. In Third 
month, 1778, Thomas Gilpin died of acute lung 
trouble, and was buried in Virginia, advising his 
companions to be faithful to their convictions. 
Shortly afterward John Hunt followed him to 
the grave. He was an elderly man, and had 
made his first acquaintances in America when he 
came over in 1756, appointed by London Yearly 
Meeting to advise Friends to resign their places 
in the Assembly during the trying days of the 


The Virginia Exiles. 163 


French and Indian wars. His leg mortified and 
had to be amputated. The doctor told him he 
bore the operation likea hero. “ Rather, I hope, 
like a Christian,” said the doomed man. 

In the meantime their friends at home were 
not idle. The Yearly Meeting, which occurred 
shortly after the banishment, issued an address 
in explanation of its position: 


A number of our friends having been imprisoned and ban- 
ished unheard from their families under a charge and in- 
sinuation that they have in their general conduct and con- 
versation evidenced a disposition inimical to the cause of 
America, and from some publications intimating that there 
is strong reason to apprehend that these persons maintain 
a correspondence highly prejudicial to the public safety, 
may induce a belief that we have in our conduct departed 
from the peaceable principles which we profess; and ap- 
prehending that the minds of some may hereby be misled, 
for the clearing of truth, we think it necessary publickly 
to declare that we are led out of all wars and fightings 
by the principles of grace and truth in our own minds by 
which we are restrained either as private members of so- 
ciety, or in any of our meetings with holding a corre- 
spondence with either army, but are concerned to spread 
the testimony of truth and peaceable doctrines of Christ, 
to seek the good of all, to keep a conscience void of offence 
towards God and man, to promote the kingdom of the Mes- 
siah which we pray may come and be experienced in indi- 
viduals, in kingdoms and nations, that they may beat their 
swords into plow shares, and their spears into pruning 
hooks, and nation not lift sword against nation neither 
learn war any more. And we deny in general terms all 
charges and insinuations which in any degree clash with 
this our profession. 

As to a nameless paper lately published said to be dated 


164 Quakers in the Revolution. 


at Spanktown yearly meeting and found among the bag- 
gage on Staten Island every person who is acquainted with 
our stile may be convinced it was never wrote at any of our 
meetings or by any of our friends. Besides there is no 
meeting throughout our whole society of that name nor 
was that letter or any one like it, ever wrote in any of our 
meetings since we were a people. 

We therefore solemnly deny the said letter and wish that 
those who have assumed a fictitious character to write un- 
der whether with a view to injure us or cover themselves 
might find it their place to clear us of this charge by stat- 
ing the truth. 

As from the knowledge we have from our banished friends 
and the best information we have been able to obtain we 
are convinced they have done nothing to forfeit their just 
right to liberty; we fervently desire that all those who have 
any hand in sending them into banishment might weightily 
consider the tendency of their own conduct and how con- 
trary it is to the doctrines and example of our Lord and 
Law Giver Jesus Christ and do them that justice which 
their case requires by restoring them to their afflicted fami- 
lies and friends. And this we are well assured will conduce 
more to their peace than keeping them in exile. We give 
forth this admonition in the fear of God and not only with 
a view to the relief of our friends but also to the real in- 
terest of those concerned in their banishment. 

Having been favored to meet to transact the affairs of our 
religious society which relate to the promotion of the cause 
of truth and righteousness we have felt a renewed concern 
for the good and happiness of mankind in general, and in 
the love of the gospel have issued forth this testimony for 
the clearing ourselves and our friends and the warning of 
those who from groundless suspicions and mistaken notions 
concerning us may be persuaded to seek our hurt to the 
wounding of their own souls and the loss of the community. 


The Meeting for Sufferings was concerned 
about the seizure of the minutes of various meet- 


The Virginia Exiles. 165 


ings, and appointed a committee to secure their 
return. They reported that they called on their 
erstwhile fellow-member, now Secretary of the 
Council, Timothy Matlack, through whom all the 
proceedings, both as to the capture of papers 
and arrest and banishment of the Friends had 
passed, and procured all but three, “ which Tim- 
othy alleged were in possession of Congress.” 
These three were “the rough draft of the epistle 
of the 21st day of Twelfth month last; report 
from the Quarterly Meeting held at Rahway the 
18th of last month, setting forth the sufferings of 
Friends on account of our religious testimonies 
and principles, and the sheet of the rough min- 
utes of this meeting.” Congress, no doubt, re- 
ceived some enlightenment from these as to the 
stand Friends had taken, but the belief must 
have been dispelled from their minds that the 
meetings were plotting to aid the cause of the 
King, and they soon returned all the papers. 
The death of two of the exiles and the sickness 
of others renewed the efforts of their friends at 
home for their release, and seems also to have 
touched the hearts of the Executive Council. A 
committee from Chester County went to Lancas- 
ter to attempt to influence the Assembly, then 


166 Quakers in the Revolution. 


sitting there, to aid in the cause. Before hear- 
ing them that body propounded two questions, to 
which they demanded formal answers: 


Whether you acknowledge the present Assembly to be the 
representatives of the people of this State, chosen for the 
purpose of legislation? 

Whether you believe the people of this state are bound 
to a due observance of the laws made by this Assembly? 


Their answers were cautious, and probably did 
not aid in the immediate object they had in 
view: 


We believe the present assembly to be representatives of 
a body of the people of Pennsylvania chosen for the pur- 
pose of legislation. 

We believe it our duty to obey the principle of Grace and 
Truth in our own hearts, which is the fulfilling of all laws 
established on justice and righteousness. Where any de- 
crees are made not having their foundation thereon they 
operate against the virtuous and give liberty to the licen- 
tious which unavoidably brings on general calamity. Al- 
though we think it our duty to bear testimony against all 
unrighteousness yet it hath ever been our principle and 
practice either actively or passively to submit to the power 
which in the course of Providence we live under. 


More effective proved to be the visit of four of 
the wives of the exiles to Lancaster. The re- 
sult was the minute of Congress, sent by Charles 
Thomson to James Pemberton: 


In Congress 16 March 1778. 
Resolved that the Board of War be directed to deliver 
over to the President and Council of Pennsylvania the 
prisoners sent from that State to Virginia. 


The Virginia Eriles. 167 


After a leisurely consideration of twenty-three 
days the Council ordered that the prisoners 
should be released. The orders, when they 
came, were couched in most respectful language: 


Tt is reported that several of these gentlemen are in a 
bad state of health and unfit to travel; if you find this to 
be the case, they must be left where they are for the 
present. Those of them who are in health you are to bring 
with you treating them on the road with that polite at- 
tention and care which is due to men who act on the purest 
motives, to gentlemen whose stations in life entitle them 
to respect however they may differ in political sentiments 
from those in whose power they are. You will please to 
give them every aid in your power by procuring the neces- 
sary means of traveling in wagons or otherwise, with such 
baggage as may be convenient for them on the road. 


Here was a long-delayed acknowledgment of 
the honesty and sincerity of the motives of the 
prisoners, and a practical withdrawal of the 
charges against them. 

The prisoners’ wives had sent a preliminary 
letter to General Washington, dated Third 
month 31st: 


Esteemed Friend 


The pressing necessity of an application to thee when per- 
haps thy other engagements of importance may by it be 
interrupted I hope will plead my excuse. It is on behalf 
of myself and the rest of the suffering and afflicted parents 
wives and near connections of our beloved husbands now 
in banishment at Winchester. What adds to our distress 
in this sorrowful circumstance is the word we have lately 
received of the removal of one of them by death and that 


168 Quakers in the Revolution. 


divers of them are much indisposed; and as we find they are 
in want of necessaries for sick people we desire the favor of 
General Washington to grant a protection to one or more 
wagons, and for the persons we may employ to go with 
them, in order that they may be accommodated with what 
is suitable for which we shall be much obliged. 
Signed on behalf of the whole, 
Mary PEMBERTON. 


Washington sent the letter to Governor Whar- 
ton, at Lancaster, with a favorable recommenda- 
tion, and followed it the next day with another 
letter, passing on the four wives of the prisoners, 
who had ealled on him at Valley Forge for per- 
mission to pass the lines: 


You will judge of the propriety of permitting them to 
proceed further than Lancaster but from appearances I 
imagine their request may safely be granted, as they seem 
much distressed—humanity pleads strongly in their behalf. 


When the prisoners reached the neighborhood 
of Philadelphia, General Washington kindly sent 
them a pass to go though his lines, and they 
reached their homes without further mishap. In 
all the relations of the General with the Friends 
we find the greatest courtesy on his part, and 
the most respectful language, whether in minutes 
of meetings or in private letters on theirs. He 
understood their scruples and respected them, 
and they felt the reality of his politeness and 
sense of justice. Some Friends from Virginia, 


The Virginia Exiles. 169 


about this time, were arrested for not entering 
the army,—had their muskets tied to them and 
were otherwise severely treated. When they 
reached Washington’s camp he immediately had 
them discharged. 

As further illustrating the courtesy shown by 
Washington to Friends, his treatment of a com- 
mittee sent to convey to him and General Howe 
their testimony against war is abundant proof. 
It was just after the battle of Germantown, when 
the American cause was not in the least promis- 
ing, and needed all the positive aid it could pos- 
sibly receive. Their brethren had gone off to 
Virginia under a serious cloud, and many a mili- 
tary commander would have treated them with 
scant forbearance. His own consideration, and 
their reciprocal care to give neither party any 
advantage by the visit, are strikingly shown by 
their report: 


We, the committee appointed by our last yearly meeting 
to visit the generals of the two contending armies on the 
second day of the week following our said meeting pro- 
ceeded to General Howe’s headquarters near Germantown 
and had a seasonable opportunity of a conference with him 
and delivered him one of the testimonies issued by the 
yearly meeting and then proceeded on our way to General 
Washington’s camp at which we arrived the next day with- 
out meeting with any interruption, and being conducted 
to headquarters where the principal officers were assembled 
in Council after waiting some time we were admitted and 


170 Quakers in the Revolution. 


had a very full opportunity of clearing the society from the 
aspersions which had been invidiously raised against them 
and distributed a number of the testimonies amongst the 
officers, who received and read them and made no objec- 
tions. 

We were much favored and mercifully helped with the 
seasoning virtue of truth and the presence of the master 
was very sensibly felt who made way for us beyond ex- 
pectation, it being a critical and dangerous season. We 
may further add that we were kindly entertained by Gen- 
eral Washington and his officers, but lest on our return, we 
should be examined as to intelligence, we were desired to 
go to Pottsgrove for a few days within which time such 
alterations might take place as to render our return less 
exceptionable to them, where we were accordingly sent un- 
der the guard or care of a single officer & hospitably en- 
tertained by Thomas Rutter a very kind man and others of 
our friends; in this town we had some good service for 
truth. Two of the committee were discharged on sixth 
day afternoon and the other four on seventh day having 
been detained between 3 and 4 days. Two of the Friends 
upon coming within the English lines were stopped and 
questioned respecting intelligence about the Americans, 
which they declined to give. They were sent under a guard 
to the Hessian Colonel who commanded at that post, and 
he proposed several questions respecting the American 
Army, which the friends declining to answer, he grew very 
angry rough and uncivil using some harsh reflecting lan- 
guage and ordered a guard to conduct them to the Hessian 
General Kniphausen who appeared more friendly, but he 
not understanding the English language sent them under 
the conduct of a light horseman or trooper to General 
Howe’s head quarters at Germantown but upon the two 
friends informing his aide de camps who they were, they 
were dismissed without being further interrogated, so that 
no kind of intelligence was obtained from them, nor any 
departure from the language of the testimony they had de- 
livered. We believe the Lord’s hand was in it guarding us 
from improper compliances and bringing us through this 


The Virginia Exiles. LL 


weighty service though it was a time of close humbling 
baptism. 

As to the charge respecting the intelligence said to have 
been given by Spank Town yearly meeting, we believe Gen- 
eral Washington and all the officers there present, being a 
pretty many were fully satisfied as to Friends’ clearness 
and we hope and believe through the Lords blessing, the 
opportunity we had was useful many ways, there having 
been great openness and many observations upon various 
subjects to edification and tending to remove and clear up 
some prejudices which had been imbibed. 

Samuel Emlen, Jr., Joshua Morris, Warner Mifflin, Wm. 
Brown, James Thornton, Nicholas Waln. 

Phila 1, 10th mo. 1778. 


An interesting sequel to this visit is related. 
When Washington was President, one of the 
committee—Warner Mifflin, a cousin of the 
General’s—called upon him. The President re- 
membered him, and adverted to their former in- 
terview. “Mr. Mifflin,” he said, “ will you now 
please tell me on what principle you were op- 
posed to the Revolution?” “Yes, Friend 
Washington; upon the principle that I should be 
opposed to a change in the present government. 
All that was ever secured by revolution is not 
an adequate compensation for the poor mangled 
soldiers and for the loss of life and limb.” “TI 
honor your sentiments,” replied the President, 
“for there is more in them than mankind has 
generally considered.” 


172 Quakers in the Revolution. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


QUAKER SUFFERING. 


Whatever inclinations towards British inter- 
ests may have been stirred up in Quaker breasts 
by the banishment of their Friends were effec- 
tually checked by the behavior of the British 
soldiery in and around Philadelphia during the 
disastrous winter of 1777-78. The revels, in 
high places and low, into which some young 
Friends were drawn, the ruthless disregard of 
personal and property rights, the abuse of their 
fair city, soon alienated the minds of Friends, 
and confirmed them in their view that if they 
could not aid revolution, neither could they aid 
in its active suppression. 

On First month 8th, 1778, the Meeting for 
Sufferings says: 

The violence, plunderings, and devastations of some of 
the soldiers and others attendant upon the British army 
committed in this city and its environs, and more particu- 
larly in their excursions into and marchings through the 
country in contradiction to the proclamations issued out 
by General Howe coming under the solid consideration of 
this meeting, and our minds being dipped into a sympa- 
thy with the sufferers, and feeling a desire that the same 


may be represented to and laid before the General in a 
weighty manner the following friends are appointed, ete. 


SES TOUTE 


eS 


ONLEW. OF ‘THE j IN PHILADELPINA Ahern 


Quaker Suffering. 173 


And again, later: 


The spirit of dissipation, levity and profaneness which 
sorrowfully has spread and is spreading, principally pro- 
moted by the military among us in and near the city at this 
time of calamity and distress affecting the minds of friends 
with pain and deep distress, our friends John Pemberton 
at the High street meeting Samuel Smith at the Bank 
and Nicholas Waln at Pine Street on first-day morning 
next are desired to declare our disunity there with and 
to warn and caution our youth and others as truth may 
open the way against going to the entertainments and 
other vain and wanton exhibitions proposed to be made 
so highly inconsistent with our profession and to shun 
the many snares into which they may be liable to fall un- 
less they keep upon their watch. 


In a general report to London Friends of the 
condition of things, dated Second month 26th, 
they further say, charging both sides impar- 
tially: 


This city and its environs are at present under military 
government and the intercourse between us and the 
country much interrupted; but Country friends sometimes 
are favored to get to our meetings, whereby we have some 
opportunities of conference upon matters respecting our 
religious testimony to the edifycation and encouragement 
of one another. Our Quarterly Meeting held in the early 
part of this month was large considering our present cir- 
cumstances and some Friends from every Monthly Meet- 
ing belonging to it attended, some of whom live about 
sixty miles from hence. 

In this city we have not lately suffered any personal 
injuries but many friends and others have sustained losses 
to a very considerable amount in their properties. In the 
country over which the Government lately set up instead of 
our late excellent constitution, exercise power, great finings, 


174 Quakers in the Revolution. 


imprisonments and various other distresses have been in- 
flicted upon many, who cannot for conscience sake join in 
their measures. 

Friends very generally have kept their habitations under 
all the prevailing commotions, some few upon strong 
motives have taken refuge within the English lines and 
a few from apprehensions of difficulties in procuring the 
necessaries for supporting their families have removed out 
of this city into the country. 

The friends who were banished from hence to Virginia 
are well accommodated and supplied at their own charge 
at private houses and some of them at friends houses 
near Winchester, they are suffered to ride six miles, 
within the compass of which there are two meetings 
besides which they keep meetings on first-day and also a 
week-day meeting which is attended by some not professing 
with us, and many of the inhabitants lately seem favour- 
ably disposed towards them. It was expected they would 
have been removed near 100 miles further from hence to 
Staunton, the place of their original destination but the 
order for their removal is at present suspended. Endeavours 
have been used to obtain their release but without the 
desired effect. The keeping them in exile is severe and 
unjust, but patience must be exercised till the Lord make 
way for their deliverance in his own time. 

By laws lately made in New Jersey, the male inhabitants 
are forbid under pain of death and women under the 
penalty of £300 fine or 12 months imprisonment from 
coming within the English lines without a special license 
which is seldom granted so that Friends are prevented 
from coming to this city from thence, but we are well 
informed they have been subjected to very great suffer- 
ings both in person and estate in that province. 


The opposition of the Friends, as we have 
seen, extended not only to actual participation in 
war, but to paying war taxes, subscribing to tests 


Quaker Suffering. 175 


of allegiance, and supplying provisions to the 
army, except where the purpose was to relieve 
suffering and not to advance the national cause. 
They were very radical, and could see no dis- 
tinction between taking part themselves and 
paying someone else to do their work. They had 
probably gone beyond the stage wherein they 
could say, in the favorite words of the Quaker 
assemblymen of thirty years before, “ While we 
do not, as the world is now circumstanced, con- 
demn the use of arms by others, we are princi- 
pled against bearing arms ourselves.” Their at- 
titude, however, cannot be fully understood if 
we look upon them as testifying merely against 
war. They had always claimed, in the old Eng- 
lish days of suffering, that they were different 
from most other dissenters, because under no cir- 
cumstances could they plot against the king. 
They would suffer indefinitely rather than obey 
an unrighteous law, but no Quaker, no matter 
how outrageously he was treated, was ever in any 
conspiracy against the existing government. 
The revolutionary movement was a plot against 
the recognized English authority. It was not 
their method of resistance to tyranny, and they 
would not touch it nor support it. When peace 
was declared, all their sense of unwavering alle- 


176 Quakers in the Revolution. 


giance was transferred to the new government, 
and they had no 1ancor stored up against its ex- 
ponents, though it required years to live down 
the reciprocal feeling towards themselves. 
Unquestionably, they were very unpopular 
with the mass of the people of strong American 
sympathies during the war, and those who con- 
trolled the political destinies of the State of 
Pennsylvania did nothing to shield them. On 
the contrary, they turned upon a number of 
men, who were undoubtedly honest and con- 
scientious, the terrors of jails, fines and serious 
distraint of goods, for their unwillingness to take 
part in the revolutionary proceedings. The 
Meeting for Sufferings reported distrainta 
amounting to £9,500 in 1778. By the end of 
the war, the aggregate reached at least £35,000 
The demand to subscribe to the test of allegiances 
to the State of Pennsylvania was followed at 
first by imprisonment, which served to show that 
some Quakers at least were made of the same 
unconquerable stuff as their ancestors of a cen- 
tury before. Three of them were kept in Lon. 
caster jail for fifteen months for this cause, and 
when finally ordered to be released they refused 
to pay the jailer’s fees, for they said they were 
convicted neither by their consciences nor by 


Quaker Suffering. 177 


any fair trial, so they would not contribute to 
the expenses of the iniquitous imprisonment. 
They were, however, released. 

Tke law, which filled the prisons and yet added 
nothing to the coffers of the government, was un- 
satisfactory, so it was abolished, and fines im- 
posed to be collected by distraint. In one Quar- 
terly Meeting (Western) over $68,000 was in 
this way levied between 1778 and 1786, for the 
collections went on long after the war was over. 
In 1781 the Yearly Meeting could say: “The 
sufferings of Friends in these parts have much 
increased, and continue increasing in a manner 
which to outward prospect looks ruinous.” 

If the State government had thought to intim- 
idate the Friends by their imprisonments at Lan- 
easter and elsewhere, and their banishment to 
Virginia, or to stop the mouth of the meetings in 
their advices to take no part in the American 
cause, they were greatly disappointed. 

Shortly after the return of the exiles, they 
themselves largely participating, the Meeting for 
Sufferings issued another minute, not less objec- 
tionable from the patriot standpoint than any 
which had preceded it, urging Friends to sub- 
scribe to no tests, and to give no aid to the war. 
There was also formed at this time a committee 


178 Quakers in the Revolution. 


to collect all cases of sufferings throughout the 
Yearly Meeting; from the minutes of which can 
be gained a very detailed account of the peculiar 
difficulties of the country Friends.* The min- 
ute was as follows : 


The committee having considered the cases of the six 
friends now imprisoned in the common jail at Lancaster, 
and being fully convinced that they are suffering for the 
testimony of a good conscience, being by religious consider- 
ations restrained from complying with the injunctions pre- 
scribed by some of the laws lately enacted in Pennsylvania 
we are united in believing that it is our duty to lay their 
cases and the weight of their sufferings before those who 
have committed them to prison and should likewise apply 
to the Executive Council of Pennsylvania and endeavor 
to obtain their release, and we therefore propose that 
some judicious friends should be desired to apply to the 
Magistrate who committed them to prison and some 
others should attend the said Council and in such manner 
as they may be enabled in the wisdom of truth perform 
this service either in person or writing as on considera- 
tion they may judge most expedient. 

And on consideration of what is necessary to be proposed 
to Friends in general on the subject of the declaration of 


* For instance: 

“From John Ferree four horse creatures, thirteen cattle, 
seven and a half bushels of wheat, twenty of clean rye, one 
stack of do., forty bushels of corn, two stacks of oats and 
one of hay. £187 7 0.” 

‘They also took from Joshua Sharpless one blanket 
worth 10s. and left money with his son a lad; but Joshua 
afterwards sent the money to them.” This was in 1777, 
when the army was scouring the country for blankets. 
There are many similar records. The Friends uniformly 
refused to sell to the army. 


Quaker Suffering. 179 


allegiance and abjuration required by some late laws passed 
by the legislatures who now preside in Pennsylvania and 
New Jersey, having several times met and deliberated 
thereon, we have the satisfaction to find we are united in 
judgment that consistent with our religious principles we 
cannot comply with the requisitions of those laws, as we 
cannot be instrumental in setting up or pulling down of any 
government but it becomes us to shew forth a peaceable 
and meek behaviour to all men, seeking their good, and to 
live a useful sober and religious life without joining our- 
selves with any parties in war or with the spirit of strife 
and contention now prevailing and believe that if our 
conduct is thus uniform and steady and our hopes fixed on 
the omnipotent arm for relief, that in time he will amply 
reward us with lasting peace which hath been the experi- 
ence of our friends in time past and we hope is of some 
who are now under sufferings. In order to communicate 
this union of sentiment on so important a subject and to 
preserve our brethren in religious profession from wound- 
ing their own minds and bringing burthens upon themselves 
and others, we think it expedient to recommend to the 
committees appointed in the several Monthly Meetings to 
assist in suffering cases in pursuance of the advice of our 
Yearly Meeting; with other faithful Friends speedily to 
appoint a solid meeting or meetings of conference with 
each other in the several Quarters, in which the grounds 
of our principles on this head may be opened and our 
objections against complying with those laws fully ex- 
plained and a united concern maintained to strengthen 
each other in the way of truth and righteousness and to 
warn and caution in the spirit of love and meekness those 
who may be in danger of deviating. 


‘This was followed up by an appeal to the As- 
sembly to respect the consciences of that people 
who, in the day of their power, had been so tol- 
erant of others: 


180 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The government of the consciences of men is the prerog- 
ative of the almighty God who will not give his glory to 
another. Every encroachment upon this his prerogative 
is offensive to his spirit, and he will not hold them 
guiltless who invade it but will sooner or later manifest 
his displeasure to all who persist therein. 

These truths we doubt not will obtain the assent of 
every considerate mind. 

The immediate occasion of our now applying to you is, 
we have received accounts from different places that a 
number of our friends have been and are imprisoned, some 
for refusing to pay the fines imposed in lieu of personal 
services in the present war and others for refusing to 
take the test prescribed by some laws lately made. The 
. ground of our refusal is a religious scruple in our minds 
against such compliance not from obstinacy or any other 
motive than a desire of keeping a conscience void of offence 
towards God, which we cannot without a steady adherence 
to our peaceable principles and testimony against wars 
and fightings founded on the precepts and example of our 
Lord Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace by a conformity 
to which we are bound to live a peaceable and quiet life 
and restrained from making any declarations or entering 
into any engagements as parties in the present unsettled 
state of public affairs. 

We fervently desire you may consider the generous and 
liberal foundation of the charter and laws agreed upon in 
.England between our first worthy Proprietary William 
Penn and our ancestors whereby they apprehended reli- 
gious and civil liberty would be secured inviolate to them- 
selves and their posterity, so that Pensilvania hath since 
been considered an asylum for men of tender con- 
sciences and many of the most useful people have resorted 
hither in expectation of enjoying freedom from the per- 
secution they suffered in their native countries. 

We believe every attempt to abridge us of that liberty 
will be a departure from the true spirit of government 
which ought to influence all well regulated legislatures and 
also destructive of the real interest and good of the com- 


UONNpOda ay) Burinp sdoo.y UDaLLaUL yy AY) Lf LayJays DV SD pas) 


CMUIA GIO—0eLT NI LITA) 


‘ASOOH-ONILHAW SANAIYT AGTIVA 


Quaker Suffering. 181 


munity and therefore desire the laws which have a ten- 
dency to oppress tender consciences may be repealed so 
that those who live peaceably may not be further disturbed 
or molested but permitted to enjoy the rights and immuni- 
ties which their forefathers purchased through much 
suffering and difficulty and to continue in the careful 
observation of the great duty of the religious instruction 
and education of the youth from which by one part of 
the said laws they are liable to be restrained. 

We hope, on due consideration of what we now offer, 
you will provide for the discharge of such who are in 
bonds for the testimony of a good conscience which may 
prevent others hereafter from suffering in like manner. 

Signed in and by the desire of our said Meeting held at 
Philadelphia the 5th day of the 8th mo., 1778. 

by Nicholas Waln, Clerk. 


There was also considerable inconvenience and 
loss in the use of the various meeting-houses for 
barracks and hospitals. Fairhill, in the city, was 
occupied by the British troops through the win- 
ter of 1777-8. Birmingham house was a hospi- 
tal for the American sick before the battle of 
Brandywine, and for the British wounded 
afterwards. Radnor was an American _bar- 
racks for some time, and Reading, Valley, 
Gwynedd, Uwehlan and Plymouth all performed 
their service in sheltering the American soldiery. 
At Kennett, near the Brandywine battlefield, we 
find a committee appointed seven days after the 
battle to distribute aid, “a concern arising in 
this meeting for the distressed inhabitants 


182 Quakers in the Revolution. 


among us who have suffered by the armies, there- 
fore it is recommended to Friends in general to 
encourage benevolence and charity by distribut- 
ing of their sustenance to such as they think are 
in want.” The committee did not find any ex- 
treme cases: “They generally appear to bear 
their sufferings with a good degree of cheerful- 
ness.” 

Chester Monthly Meeting, through whose 
limits the two armies had passed, and whose 
members had felt the ravages more particularly 
of the British soldiery, on Tenth month 27th, 
1777, records that “Preparative Meetings are 
desired to endeavor to raise subscriptions to be 
applied for the relief of such as are or may be 
hereafter in necessitous cireumstances in this 
time of trial and suffering.” 

When Howe’s army passed through the 
highly-tilled fields of the Quaker counties, just 
atthe end of a productive harvest, with the 
barns well stored with grain and the houses full 
of every comfort, they made the most of their 
short stay. The irresponsible freebooters seized 
not only such things as might be useful, but 
recklessly destroyed the furniture. and carried 
away the female apparel unchecked by their su- 
perior officers. 


Quaker Suffering. 183 


In the winter the Americans followed, for 
Congressional orders had been given that all sup- 
plies within seventy miles of Valley Forge 
should be used by the army if needed. These 
were paid for in the depreciated currency of the 
times, but all payment the Quakers refused. 
Their refusal to take the oath of allegiance and 
abjuration increased their chances of being the 
victims of the operations of the American forag- 
ing parties. 

Up to the middle of 1778 no part of the coun- 
try had suffered by the ravages of war so much 
as Philadelphia and its neighborhood, and no 
part of this had been so thoroughly ransacked as 
the strip between the Chesapeake and Philadel- 
phia, over which Howe’s army had passed. 

While the British were in the city, an Ameri- 
can order was issued to prevent the attendance 
of Friends at the Yearly Meeting, on the plea 
that these meetings were centres of plotting 
against the government. This was just after the 
Spanktown affair, and even Washington seemed 
to have entertained some suspicion. General 
Lacey, to whom the orders were given, passed 
them on with the injunction “to fire into those 
who refused to stop when hailed, and leave their 
dead bodies lying in the road.” It may have 


184 Quakers in the Revolution. 


been well to stop intercourse on military grounds, 
but the Yearly Meetings were very harmless, 
and no treasonable plots were ever hatched in 
them. 

Another serious difficulty arose from a law 
that all school teachers should take the test, un- 
der heavy penalties. There were at this time a 
considerable number of Quaker schools and 
school teachers. Some closed and some went on 
till thrown into jail for a refusal to pay the fine.* 
This trouble led to another protest to the Assem- 
bly dated Eleventh month 3d, 1779: 


To the General Assembly of Pennsylvania: The memorial 
and address of the religious Society called Quakers 
respectfully sheweth: 


That divers laws have been lately enacted which are 
very injurious in their nature, oppressive in the manner of 
execution, and greatly affect us in our religious and civil 
liberties and privileges, particularly a law passed by the 
last Assembly entitled “‘A further supplement to the test 
laws of this State,” in the operation whereof the present 
and succeeding generations are materially interested. We 
therefore apprehend it a duty owing to ourselves and our 
posterity to lay before you the grievances to which we are 
subjected by these laws. 


* Joshua Bennett was committed to Lancaster jail, “ he 
having been convicted of having kept school, not having 
taken the oath or affirmation of allegiance to the State, 
according to law.” He was fined £100, but the State got 
no fine and the jailor no fees. 


Quaker Suffering. 185 


Our predecessors on their early settlement in this part 
of America, being piously concerned for the prosperity of 
the colony and the real wellfare of their posterity, among 
other salutary institutions promoted at their own expence 
the establishment of schools for the instruction of their 
Youth in useful and necessary learning and their education 
in piety and virtue, the practice of which forms the most 
sure basis for perpetuating the enjoyment of Christian 
liberty and essential happiness. 

By the voluntary contributions by the members of our 
religious Society, Schools were set up in which not only 
their children were taught but their liberality hath been 
extended to poor children of other religious denominations 
generally, great numbers of whom have partaken thereof; 
and these schocls have been in like manner continued and 
maintained for a long course of years. 

Duty to Almighty God made known in the consciences of 
men and confirmed by the holy Scriptures is an invariable 
tule which should govern their judgment and actions. He 
is the only Lord and Sovereign of Conscience, and to him 
we are accountable for our conduct, as by him all men are 
to be finally judged. By conscience we mean the appre- 
hension and persuasion a man has of his duty to God and 
the liberty of conscience we plead for is a free open pro- 
fession and unmolested exercise of that duty, such a con- 
science as under the influence of divine grace keeps within 
the bounds of morality in all the affairs of human life 
and teacheth to live soberly righteously and godly in the 
world. 

As a religious Society, we have ever held forth the 
Gospel dispensation was introduced for completing the 
happiness of mankind by taking away the occasion of strife 
contention and bloodshed and therefore we all conscien- 
tiously restrained from promoting or joining in wars and 
fghtings: and when laws have been made to enforce our 
compliance contrary to the conviction of our consciences,we 
have thought it our duty patiently to suffer though we have 
often been grievously oppressed. Principle we hold 
in this respect requires us to be a. peaceable people and 


186 Quakers in the Revolution. 


through the various changes and revolutions which have 
occurred since our religious Society has existed, we have 
never been concerned in promoting or abetting any com- 
binations insurrections or parties to endanger the public 
peace or by violence to oppose the authority of goyernment 
apprehending it our duty quietly to submit and peaceably 
to demean ourselves under every government which Divine 
Providence in his unerring wisdom may permit to be placed 
over us; so that no government can have just occasion for 
entertaining fears or jealousies of disturbance or danger 
from us. But if any professing with us deviate from this 
peaceable principle into a contrary conduct and foment dis- 
cords, feuds or animosities, giving just occasion of un- 
easiness and disquiet, we think it our duty, to declare 
against their proceeding. 

By the same divine principle, we are restrained from 
complying with the injunctions and requisitions made on 
us of tests and declarations of fidelity to either party who 
are engaged in actual war lest we contradict by our con- 
duct the profession of our faith. 

It is obvious that in these days of depravity, as in for- 
mer times, because of oaths the land mourns and the mul- 
tiplying the use of them and such solemn engagements ren- 
ders them familiar, debases the mind of the people and 
adds to the number of those gross evils already lamentably 
prevalent which have drawn down the chastisement of 
heaven on our guilty country. 

We are not actuated by political or party motives; we 
are real friends to our country, who wish its prosperity 
and think a solicitude for the enjoyments of our equitable 
rights, and that invaluable priviledge, Liberty of Conscience, 
free from coercion, cannot be justly deemed unreasonable. 
Many of us and other industrious inhabitants being exposed 
to heavy penalties and sufferings, which are abundantly 
encreased by the rigour of mistaken and unreasonable men 
under the sanction of law, whereby many are allready 
reduced to great straits and threatened with total ruin, 
the effects of whose imprisonment must at length be very 


Quaker Suffering. 187 


sensibly felt by the community at large through the de 
cline of cultivation and the necessary employments. 

We have been much abused and vilified by many anony- 
mous publications and our conduct greatly perverted and 
misrepresented by groundless reports and the errors of 
individuals charged upon us as a body im order to render 
us odious to the people and prepossess the minds of 
persons in power against us; being conscious of our inno- 
cence and “submitting our cause to the Lord who judgeth 
righteously” we have preferred patience in bearing the re- 
proach to public contest, not doubting that as the minds 
of the people became more settled and composed, our 
peaceable demeanour would manifest the injustice we sui- 
fered, and being persuaded that on a cool dispassionate 
hearing we should be able to invalidate or remove the 
mistaken suggestions and reports prevailing to our 
prejudice. 

The matters we have now freely laid before you are 
serious and important, which we wish you to consider 
wisely as men and religiously as Christians manifesting 
yourselves friends to true liberty and enemies to perse- 
cution, by repealing the several penal laws affecting tender 
consciences and restoring to us our equitable rights that 
the means of education and instruction of our youth 
which we conceive to be our reasonable and religious 
duty, may not be obstructed and that the oppressed may 
be relieved. In your consideration whereof, we sincerely 
desire that you may seek for and be directed by that 
supreme “wisdom which is pure, peaceable, gentle and 
easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits” and 
are your real friends. 

Signed on behalf of a meeting of the Representatives 
of the said people held in Philadelphia the 4th Day of 
the 11 mo 1779. 

\ JOHN DRINKER, Clerk. 


In other respects also the Friends seemed to 
have fallen upon evil times. The windows of their 


188 Quakers in the Revolution. 


houses and shops were broken, and other injur- 
ies were perpetrated by the mob “ for following 
their lawful occupations on days appointed by 
Congress on pretence of fasting and humilia- 
tion.” They would neither weep with those 
who wept nor rejoice with those who rejoiced at 
the command of government. 


On the evening of the 4th of the Seventh month, 1777, 
which day was set apart for the purpose of public feasting 
and rejoicing, to commemorate the anniversary of declar- 
ing these colonies independent of the authority and govern- 
ment of Great Britain, the like abuse was committed on 
the houses of divers friends for declining to illuminate 
them with candles in the windows, a vain practice which 
our religious Society has ever held forth a testimony 
against, 


Then there seemed to be a persistent purpose 
to elect or appoint Friends to offices which it was 
known they would not fill, and fine them for non- 
compliance. All offices were demurred to by 
those in harmony with the Yearly Meeting, but 
places as tax-gatherers were peculiarly objec- 
tionable, for the taxes went to the support of the 
war, and must be forced from conscientious peo- 
ple. 

Some of them also disapproved of handling 
the paper money of the day. The Meeting ap- 
parently went no further than to advise against 
paying off debts in depreciated currency on ac- 


Quaker Suffering. 189 


count of injustice to the creditor, but individuals 
argued that as this money was issued to aid the 
war it was wrong to touch it. When, however, 
one Friend, after carefully settling a debt in 
hard money at considerable loss to himself, found 
that it was immediately seized by the govern- 
ment as a great addition to its resources, he be- 
gan to question whether his refusal to handle the 
prevailing currency had any virtue in it. 

As an illustration of the great carefulness of 
Friends not to take even an indirect part in war, 
we have the following account of Joseph Town- 
send, a young man, who out of curiosity followed 
the British army as it marched past his home 
towards the Brandywine battle: 

I arrived at the bars on the road where I was met 
by several companies of soldiers who were ordered into 
the field to form and prepare for the approaching en- 
gagement. The openings of the bars not being of sufficient 
width to admit them to pass with that expedition which 
the emergency of the case required, a German officer on 
horseback ordered the fence to be taken down, and as 
I was near to the spot had to be subject to his requiring as 
he flourished a drawn sword over my head with others 
who stood by. On a removal of the second rail I was 
forcibly struck with the impropriety of being active in 
pate to take the lives of my fellow beings and there- 


ore desisted in proceeding any further in obedience to 
his commands. 


The Yearly Meeting also advised against fur- 


190 Quakers in the Revolution. 


nishing supplies to the army by grinding grain, 
feeding cattle, making weapons, or otherwise 
procuring any profit from traffic with it; also 
against allowing any of their goods to be shipped 
in armed vessels. Truly the way of a conscien- 
tious Quaker in the midst of war is a narrow one, 
and the wonder is that so large a proportion 
were able, in a time of excitement and bitter par- 
tisanship, to agree to recommend to their breth- 
ren, and practice themselves, the advice of the 
following minute: 

So that we may by Divine assistance be mutually help- 
ful in maintaining a conduct uniformly consistent with 
our religious principles, which do not allow of our accept- 
ing of or continuing in any public office or being anyways 
active under the power and authority exercised at this 
time as they appear to be founded in the spirit of war 
and fightings. Friends are therefore exhorted and cau- 
tioned against being concerned in electing or being elected 
to any place of profit or trust under the present commo- 
tion, nor to pay any fine penalty or tax in lieu of personal 
service for carrying on the present war or to consent to or 
allow of our apprentices children or servants acting 
therein, and carefully to avoid all trade and business tend- 
ing to promote war and particularly against partaking of 


the spoils of war by buying or vending prize goods of any 
kind. 


A: little body of Friends had settled on the 
frontiers at Catawissa, and built a meeting- 
house. In this position they were in much more 
difficulty than if in the Quaker counties, be- 


Quaker Suffering. 191 


cause of the long-standing hostile feelings of the 
frontiersmen. They were in the midst of Indian 
ravages, and many of their neighbors had sought 
safety by flight. They, however, remained un- 
armed, and their confidence was justified. No 
red man disturbed them. When Moses Roberts, 
a minister, was approaching the meeting-house 
as usual on the first day of the week for their 
quiet worship, he and other leaders of the meet- 
ing were arrested, placed in jail, and without ac- 
cusation or trial informed that their liberation 
could only be secured by offering bail to the ex- 
tent of £10,000. Two of them were sent down 
the Susquehanna in a canoe, and without trial 
were kept in Lancaster jail for eleven months. 
Two months after their arrest a body of armed 
men drove their families out of their houses, 
leaving them without any means of support, and 
seized their property. They were financially 
ruined. The supposition was that they were aid- 
ing the Indians by giving information, a sus- 
picion excited by their immunity from 
molestation in the Indian raids. As they were 
denied a trial then or afterwards, no proof 
on either side can now be adduced, but it 
is almost certain that men of their character 
would not even indirectly assist in the cruel 


192 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Indian attacks on their white brethren. It was 
probably some of the same spirit which animated 
the Paxton boys of 1764 which caused their im- 
prisonment and the spoliation of their goods. 

A still sadder narrative is that of the trial and 
execution of two Friends in Philadelphia in the 
latter part of 1778. When the city was evac- 
uated by the British, most of the Tories, antici- 
pating danger from the temper of the Americans, 
placed themselves safely within the British lines. 
The Quakers, however, remained at their homes. 
The most of them had been passive in their ac- 
tions, even when loyalists at heart, and nothing 
could be laid to their charge. The excited 
populace, however, demanded victims, and they 
were found in two men who had disregarded the 
advice of their meetings and given active aid to 
the royal cause. 

Abraham Carlisle was a carpenter in Phila- 
delphia. During the British occupancy he had 
accepted a commission to superintend passes 
through the British lines. Having large ae- 
quaintance and a good character, he undertook 
this, probably in no mercenary spirit, and, as 
many witnesses testified, with a desire to allevi- 
ate distress, which he succeeded in doing in a 
number of cases. 


(‘6687 paydnshoj0y.7 ) 


SLUdAOU NHOL AO TIN 


Quaker Suffering. 193 


John Roberts was a miller. His mill is still 
standing on Mill Creek, in Lower Merion Town- 
ship, Montgomery County, about ten miles from 
the centre of Philadelphia. He was now nearly 
sixty years old, of perfect integrity, and a benev- 
olent disposition. These were certified to by 
willing witnesses of the highest character, who 
gave many instances of his goodness of heart. 
He was in good standing among Friends and so- 
cially connected with cultivated families within 
the Society. His sympathies were British, and 
when his friends were banished to Virginia he 
became greatly excited at the injustice. He 
visited Howe, then marching across Chester 
County, and offered to conduct a body of troops 
to intercept the convoy and release the prisoners. 
Finding himself an object of dislike to his neigh- 
bors, and fearing molestation, he took refuge 
within the lines of the British army. Thence 
he would appear at intervals as guide to a party 
of foragers in their excursions among the farms 
of his locality. His friends claimed this to be 
involuntary, and that he used his influence to 
shield poor people who he knew could not afford 
to part with their goods. His enemies consid- 
ered him the willing agent of the invading army 
in pointing out the houses of the friends of the 


194 Quakers in the Revolution. 


American cause. With the records before us it 
is impossible to determine which view was cor- 
rect. 

The two men were tried before Chief Justice 
McKean, and were convicted of high treason. 

Their age and high standing, their large fam- 
ilies, the prevailing opinion that while techni- 
cally guilty they were sacrificed to an ignoble 
demand for vengeance on many who were far 
more culpable, created great interest in their 
case. Petitions showered into the Executive 
Council in great numbers, asking reprieves. The 
most of the members of the grand and petit 
juries, fortified by the signatures of the justices 
of the court, nearly four hundred other signers 
in the case of Carlisle and nearly one thousand 
in that of Roberts, embracing eminent men in 
the American army and in civil and social posi- 
tions, sent in their urgent appeals. But the 
attempt was futile, and in a public conveyance, 
with their coffins before them and ropes about 
their necks, they were carried to their execution. 

There was the deepest sympathy among 
Friends for the sufferers. The letters of the 
times, when they refer to the case, speak as if the 
Friends had endured an unmerited penalty, by 
an unnecessary, if legal, stretch of authority. 


Quaker Suffering. 195 


‘Inasmuch as the Yearly Meeting had advised 
strongly against the course of action which had 
brought them into the court, no official protest 
was made. The Meeting for Sufferings ap- 
pointed a committee to write their views of the 
case, but their report does not appear on the min- 
utes till 1785, though it bears the date of Eighth 
month 4th, 1779, and is referred to in contem- 
porary letters. 

After a general introduction, it describes the 
cases as follows: 


One of them was an Inhabitant of this City of a 
reputable moral character, who after the British army 
took possession thereof in the Fall of the year 1777 was 
prevailed upon to accept of an office to grant permitts or 
persons to pass in and out; his acceptance of which station 
and acting therein giving concern to Friends, they ex- 
pressed their uneasiness to him, but their endeavors to 
convince him of his error did not prevail with him to 
decline or withdraw executing it. 

The other being a member of a neighbouring Mo. 
Meeting in the country, we have not learned that any 
religious care or advice was seasonably extended to him; 
he resided at Merion, maintained a reputable character 
among men, well respected for his hospitality, benevolent 
disposition and readiness to serve his neighbors and 
friends, and to administer relief to the afflicted or dis- 
tressed. 

Th the 9th mo. 1777, several Friends and others 
of their fellow citizens being unjustly apprehended and 
imprisoned, and afterwards sent into banishment without 
an examination or hearing; suffering his mind to be too 
much moved by this arbitrary violation of civil and 
religious liberty, he hastened away without previously 


196 Quakers in the Revolution. 


consulting with them, to give intelligence thereof to the 
General of the British Army then on their march towards 
this city, in hope to frustrate the intention of sending 
them into exile; which proceeding of his, when it became 
known, gave sensible pain and concern to Friends. Some 
time after his return from this journey he was seen in 
company with the English Army, or parties of them, in 
some of their marches or enterprizes not far distant from 
the city, but he allways imsisted this was against his 
will, and that he was forcibly compelled to it, which also 
appears by the evidence given at his trial; but these parts 
of his conduct furnished occasion for the prosecution 
against him. 

After the British Army evacuated this city in the Sixth 
month, 1778, their opponents returned, and resuming their 
power, these two members were in a short time arraigned 
with divers other persons, for high Treason, and after 
a trial were by a jury declared guilty, sentenced to be 
executed and their estates confiscated to the Government. 

Having perused a copy of the evidence taken at their 
trial, we find it to be a very contradictory, and dis- 
cover clear indications of a party spirit, and that they 
were prosecuted with great severity and rigour is also 
apparent, the punishment inflicted far exceeding the 
nature of their offence; and that this was the general 
sense of the people was demonstrated by great numbers 
of all rank uniting their interests and influence for saving 
their lives by petitions and divers personal applications 
to the persons in power who held the authority over 
them; but they proved inexorable, alledging political 
reasons for rejecting those ardent solicitations. Notwith- 
standing they were members of our religious Society 
whom we respected and commiserated in their distressed 
situation yet as through their inadvertence to the prin- 
ciples of Divine Grace, and overlooking the repeated 
advice and caution given forth by Friends they were suf- 
fered to fall into such error and deviation, which occasioned 
great trouble of mind and affliction to their brethren, and 
affected the reputation of truth, this meeting or any other 


Quaker Suffering. 197 


was restrained from interposing in their favour or vindica- 
tion, as is our duty and usual care when our brethren are 
subjected to suffering or persecution for righteousness sake 
and the testimony of a good conscience; nevertheless we 
were sensibly touched with much sympathy toward them, 
which was manifested by the repeated visits of divers 
Friends who were religiously concerned for their wellfare, 
some of whom have informed us that through the merci- 
ful visitation of Divine Kindness they were favoured with 
a sense of their deviation from that rectitude and stability 
of conduct which our peaceable Christian principles re- 
quire; and John Roberts at one time with earnestness 
expressed, “ that he had gone beyond the line, and seen 
his deviation, and if his life was spared he should spend it 
differently.” 

And Abraham Carlisle said, “that he saw the 
station he had filled and acted in, in a different light, and 
that he had been under a cloud when he thought he was 
doing right” ; and on some further conversation respect- 
ing the concern and burthen he had brought on Friends 
by omitting to give attention to some early hints and 
advice, he appeared disposed to acknowledge his error in 
writing; and at another time expressed “‘ that he was very 
sorry he had given any uneasiness to Friends, as he always 
had a regard to the Society.” It also appears that near 
the close of their time, from the disposition of mind attend- 
ing them, there is grounds to hope and believe they were, 
through Divine Mercy, prepared for their awful, solemn 
change, expressing their resignation thereto, forgiveness of 
those who sought their destruction, and their desire that 
all men might timely and happily experience redemption 
from the evils of the world, evidencing by their sentiments 
and the tranquil state of their minds, that they were not 
left comfortless in the hour of extremity. 

\ 


In reply to an address of Friends to the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly, asking protection against 
persecutions for conscience’ sake, that body de- 


198 Quakers in the Revolution. 


siring a strict definition of their principles and 
intentions with regard to the new government, 
sent a set of questions to which they desired 
categorical answers in writing: 


1. Do you acknowledge the Supreme Legislative Power 
of the State rightfully and lawfully vested in the present 
House of Representatives met in Assembly? 

2. Do you acknowledge the Supreme Executive Power of 
the State to be lawfully and rightfully vested in the present 
President and Council? 

3. Do you acknowledge and agree that the same 
obedience and respect is due to these bodies respectively 
that you formerly paid and acknowledged to the Governor 
and Assembly respectively while Pennsylvania was depen- 
dent on Great Britain? 

4, Are you willing and do you agree to render the same 
respect and obedience you rendered Governor and As- 
sembly in Pa. before the present war between Great Britain 
and America? 

5. Do you consider yourselves now living under the 
laws of the State with regard to your personal liberty and 
property? 

6. Do you admit it to be the right of the governed to 
resist the Governors when the powers of Government are 
used to the oppression and destruction of the governed? 

7. Do you or do you not deem the laws passed by the 
King and Parliament of Gt. Britain for taxing this coun- 
try, prohibiting its trade, sending its inhabitants to Gt. 
Britain for trial, oppressive and destructive to the people 
of America? 


They also asked why they would not use Con- 
tinental money, and why they made a distinction 
between it and other paper money previously is- 
sued for war purposes; and finally requested 


Quaker Suffering. 199 


copies of all minutes and addresses to the mem- 
bers and to other Yearly Meetings bearing on the 
question of allegiance. 

To these requests the Meeting for Sufferings 
replied that they were a religious, not a political, 
body, and that the inquisition into their opin- 
ions was entirely without precedent in America. 
Individually they had political opinions, but col- 
lectively they had only moral and religious opin- 
ions, to which the world was welcome. 

They had always believed government to be 
a Divine ordinance, and Governors who ruled 
well worthy of all honor, nevertheless that con- 
science must be respected as supreme over all 
human laws. They were opposed to war, and 
their opposition was founded on the Gospel, 
which pointed to the approaching reign of uni- 
versal peace, love and harmony. 

They had declined to take any part on either 
side of the existing contest or to join in any way 
to promote disturbance, and many had refused 
the payment of war taxes for a long time before 
the Revolution. 

\Their papers had been seized in 1777, and re- 
turned because nothing seditious was found in 
them. 

Finally, they said their desire was to develop 


200 Quakers in the Revolution. 


such a temper of mind as would enable them to 
forgive all injuries and to prove they are friends 
to all men. 

The Assembly failed in bringing them to de 
clare themselves, as, owing to the diversity 
among them, it would have been manifestly im- 
possible to do. As many in state authority were 
disowned Friends, who knew exactly the situa- 
tion, it is probable that the questions were really 
intended to foster division or increase popular 
disapproval rather than to elicit information, and 
a general answer was all that could safely be 
given. 

The dislike of the Quakers showed itself in a 
violent outbreak in Philadelphia. The more ex- 
treme of the revolutionalists, under Joseph Reed, 
were in general control during the latter years 
of the war, but at times they could not restrain 
the mob of their own partisans in the streets. 
A general like Mifflin, and signers of the 
Declaration of Independence like Morris and 
Wilson, were hardly safe in their own city. 
They were too moderate, and hence had 
their doors battered in by the rioters, and were 
in danger of their lives. Under such cir- 
cumstances it is hardly to be expected that 
the Quakers, who had never approved of 


Quaker Suffering. 201 


the Revolution, should be unmolested. The 
feeling came out strongly when they refused 
to illuminate their houses “on the occasion 
of a victory of one of the parties of war over the 
other,” in which general manner they charac- 
terized the defeat of Cornwallis at Yorktown in 
1781. Their general unpopularity seemed to 
have weighed on them when they contrasted it 
with their former strength. They were con- 
scious that while never professing to approve of 
the Revolution as a body, they had never op- 
posed it or attempted to resist, nor even to escape 
from its government. They had lived quietly 
at their homes, under American and British oc- 
cupancy, under the rule of moderates and radi- 
cals, opposing no one, and always good and 
peaceable citizens. Their faults, if their actions 
were faults, were negative. Under these cir- 
cumstances it seemed good to them as a matter 
of defence to issue, now that the war was prac- 
tically over, one more address in explanation of 
their course: 


Eleventh mo. 22nd, 1781. 
To the President and Executive Council, the General 
\ Assembly of Pennsylvania and others whom it may 
concern the following representation on behalf of the 
people called Quakers sheweth: 
That the outrages and violences committed on the 
property and on divers of the persons of the inhabitants 


202 Quakers in the Revolution. 


of Philadelphia of our religious Society by companies of 
licentious people parading the streets, destroying the win- 
dows and doors of our houses, breaking into and plunder- 
jng some of them on the evening of the 24th of last month 
increases the occasion of our present address to you who 
are in the exercise of the power of civil government, which 
is in itself honourable and originally instituted for the 
support of public peace and good order and the preserva- 
tion of the just rights of the people. 


* * * * * * * * * * 


It must therefore appear strange and extraordinary in 
the view of candid enquirers that so evident a change and 
contrast have taken place, and that many who are 
the descendants of the first settlers professing the same 
religious principles and connected in interest affection and 
duty to the real good and welfare of our country who 
have never forfeited our birthright should now be vilified 
persecuted and excluded from our just liberties and priv- 
ileges not only by laws calculated to oppress us but the 
execution of them in some placas committed to men of 
avaricious profligate principles who have made a prey of 
the innocent and industrious to the great loss and damage 
of some and the almost ruin of others; scurrilous publica- 
tions and other invidious means have been used by our ad- 
versaries to calumniate and reproach us with opprobrious 
names in order to inflame the minds of the ignorant and im- 
pose on the credulous to our prejudice, when upon an im- 
partial candid examination we trust it will appear that in 
the course of the commotions which have unhappily pre- 
vailed no just cause of offence will be found against us 
but that we have endeavored to maintain our peaceable 
religious principles to preserve a good conscience toward 
God and to manifest our good will to all men. 

* * * * * * * * * * 


The dispensation of war bloodshed and calamity which 
hath been permitted to prevail on the Continent is very 
solemn and awful demanding the most serious and heart- 
felt attention of all ranks and denominations among the 


Quaker Suffering. 203 


people individually to consider and examine how far we 
are each of us really and sincerely engaged to bring forth 
fruits of true repentance and amendment of life agreeable 
to the spirit and doctrine of the gospel. And although we 
have been exposed to great abuse and unchristian treat- 
ment we wish to be enabled through the assistance of 
Divine Grace to cherish in ourselves and inculcate in 
others with whom we have an influence that disposition 
to forgiveness of injuries enjoined by the precept and 
example of Christ our Holy Lawgiver and to manifest 
our desires and endeavors to promote the real good of our 
country and that we are 
Your Friends. 


Notwithstanding their unpopularity they were 
able to report, in 1780, that “divers persons of 
sober conduct, professing to be convinced of our 
religious principles, have on their application 
been received into membership.” In the same 
year they could also announce the practical suc- 
cess of their efforts to support their peaceable 
testimony; “Care is maintained to preserve our 
ancient testimony against bearing arms or being 
engaged in military services, and many have 
deeply suffered in the distraint of their goods 
and effects on this account.” 

They undoubtedly felt that though they had 
suffered much in popular esteem, they had steered 
through a very troubled sea of war and confu- 
sion on a straight line of principle. Their 
testimony against war was kept vital under con- 


204 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ditions where any weakness or compromise 
would have destroyed it. They had suffered for 
it, and had been preserved, and they felt no 
temptation to make any apologies, or look back 
with any regrets. With abundant confidence in 
the solidity of the ground on which they stood, 
they looked confidently forward to the better 
days of peace. Though their ranks were deci- 
mated by the “disownment” of unfaithful 
brethren, the testimony of the Society as a whole 
had been given without fear or equivocation, and 
already some who had left them in the moment 
of excitement were honestly regretful of their 
course, and were asking to be reunited. The 
years following the war were the years of the 
greatest increase in the number of meetings, and 
probably of members, which had been seen in 
Pennsylvania since the early years of the settle- 
ment. 

On which side were Quaker sympathies during 
the Revolutionary war? is a question often asked. 
It is impossible to give a definite answer, but 
there are several guides on which something of 
a judgment may be based. About four hundred, 
perhaps, actively espoused the American side by 
joining the army, accepting positions under the 
revolutionary government, or taking an affirma- 


Quaker Suffering. 205 


tion of allegiance to it, and lost their birthright 
among Friends as a result. Perhaps a score in a 
similar way openly espoused the British cause, 
and also were disowned by their brethren. These 
numbers very likely represented proportions of 
silent sympathizers. The official position was 
one of neutrality, but individually the Friends 
could hardly be neutral. It seems almost certain 
that the men of property and social standing in 
Philadelphia, the Virginia exiles and their close 
associates, like the wealthy merchants of New 
York and Boston, were loyalists, though in their 
case passively so.* One gets this impression from 
such sources as Elizabeth Drinker’s Diary and 
certain Pemberton letters. The husband of 
Elizabeth Drinker was one of the exiles, and, 
while she writes cautiously, a careful reader can 
hardly doubt her bias. Many of the country 


*In this Province—Pennsylvania—indeed, in Philadelphia, 
there are three persons, a Mr. W——, who is very rich 
and very timid; the Provost of the College, Dr. Smith, 
who is supposed to be distracted between a strong passion 
for lawn sleeves and a stronger passion for popularity, 
which is very necessary to support the reputation of his 
Episcopal College, and one Israel Pemberton, who is at 
the head of the Quaker interest. These three make an 
interest here which is lukewarm, but they are all obliged 
to lie low for the present.”—John Adams’ Diary, Vol. I., 
pp. 173-174. June, 1775. 


206 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Friends were probably American in their sympa- 
thies. It is very difficult to show this conclu- 
sively, and only by slight allusions here and there 
is the idea gained. We do not know of any at- 
tacks upon them by the patriots, and it is likely 
that many of them, while too conscientious to go 
with their sons and brothers into the American 
army, held the same general opinions in favor of 
the cause of liberty for which they had con- 
tended so consistently since the days when David 
Lloyd mustered them against William Penn. 

There were, therefore, a few radical Tories, a 
much larger number of radical Friends of the 
Revolution, and the rest were quiet sympathizers 
with one or the other party. In this diversity all 
the moderate men who were really desirous to be 
faithful to the traditional beliefs of their fathers 
could unite on a platform of perfect neutrality 
of action for conscience’ sake. 


The Free Quakers. 207 


CHAPTER IX. 


THE FREE QUAKERS. 


Many of those disowned by the Society for 
espousing actively and sincerely the American 
cause were unable to ally themselves with any 
other religious organization. Quakerism in 
many essential features was so instilled into them 
that they took no satisfaction in the more elab- 
orate forms which characterized other modes of 
formal worship. 

Others were simply irreligious people who 
cared nothing for membership in any denomina- 
tion. Ina large number of cases other offences 
were charged against them. They were dis- 
owned for taking up arms and also for non- 
attendance at meetings or for improper or 
immoral conduct. The Society took advantage 
of the opportunity to separate from membership 
those who had not been for a long time up to its 
standard of life. All those who were reckless, 
iniifferent or unfortunate, as in all times of ex- 
citement, flocked to one or the other standard, 
and were unceremoniously disowned. It re- 
quired some self-denial and more or less of moral 


208 Quakers in the Revolution. 


courage to withstand the general unpopularity, 
and adhere to the policy the meeting had laid 
down. It will not do, therefore, to assume that 
all or nearly all of the separated membews braved 
their ecclesiastical penalties in a spirit of un- 
selfish dedication to a great cause. 

There was also, especially in the beginning of 
the war, a number of young men who, without 
very profound convictions, were carried away 
with the contagious enthusiasm of the times, and 
almost before having time for second thought 
found themselves outside the Society. 

When the war ended some of all classes, find- 
ing that their affections were still with Friends, 
sought to return into membership. This could 
only be effected by condemning the violations for 
which disownment had been meted out to them. 
Some found it possible to do this in all sincerity. 

Owen Biddle was a vehement patriot, and lost 
his membership in 1775 for military services. 
Early the next year he became a member of the 
Board of War appointed by the Executive Coun- 
cil of Pennsylvania, and served till the Board 
was disbanded, seventeen months later. Three 
of his eight associates were also disowned 
Friends. Having wealth, learning and position, 
he was an important aid to the patriots through 


The Free Quakers. 209 


the whole war. When it was over, and his cause 
triumphant, his thoughts underwent a revolu- 
tion. James Pemberton writes of it: 


However, in the midst of troubles, it is comfortable to 
find that some have become weary and find no rest but in 
returning. The instance of O. Biddle shows that miracles 
are not ceased. I was sensible he had long dwelt in 
a painful state of mind but unwilling to bow or confess; 
it is comfortable to hear that he hath at last; and with 
his stability believe he will find it better to be a door- 
keeper in the house of his Lord than dwell in the tents of 
wickedness. 


Others had no inclination to apologize and re- 
turn. They were perfectly satisfied with their 
course in serving the American cause in civil 
and military places, and felt that their Quaker- 
ism was not to be impeached on this account. 
They therefore undertook to form a new society, 
“The Religious Society of Friends,” by some 
styled the “ Free Quakers,” as their first minute 
book records in February, 1781. 

The central figure in the movement was 
Samuel Wetherill, a minister and clerk of the 
meeting for many years. With him were asso- 
ciated Timothy Matlack, a colonel in the army, 
and during the whole war secretary to the Execu- 
tive Council of Pennsylvania; Clement Biddle, 
also a colonel, and quartermaster of the Revolu- 
tionary army; Christopher Marshall, whose diary 


210 Quakers in the Revolution. 


has been published, and two women, Lydia Dar- 
rach and Elizabeth Griscom, who performed 
peculiar services to the American cause, with a 
hundred or more others. 

Lydia Darrach conveyed to Washington infor- 
mation of a plan to surprise his army. During 
the British occupation a company of officers 
were quartered at her house. She was cautioned 
to have all her family in bed on a certain 
evening, as an important conference was to 
be held. The injunction was observed, but she 
herself, quietly listening at the keyhole, heard 
the plans discussed for an attack on Washington 
the following night. Under plea of going to 
Frankford for flour she went on to White Marsh, 
where the American army was encamped, and 
gave timely notice. The attack was foiled, and 
the general, in his disappointment, strove in 
vain to ascertain from Lydia how the scheme 
reached the American general. 

Elizabeth Griscom, afterwards Ross, after- 
wards Claypoole, lived near Second and Arch 
Streets, and supported herself by her needle. 
‘She made flags for the Continental Congress, and 
tradition says the first Stars and Stripes were 
made by her just before the Declaration of In- 
dependence in 1776. The order of Congress 


The Free Quakers. 211 


directing her to be paid has been found. She 
lived till 1836, and was the last of the original 
Free Quakers. 

The new Society in two respects was in strik- 
ing contrast to the body from which its members 
had been ejected. No one was to be disowned 
for any cause. If he were erring there was so 
much more need for labor to restore him. He 
was to be encouraged in the performance of all 
civil and military duties for the defence of his 
country. The “discipline” was very brief. It 
allowed the largest liberty of individual thought 
and action, abolished all “ offences ” like irregu- 
lar marriage, and other formalities; in case of 
actual immorality recognized only the responsi- 
bility to reform, and encouraged reference to the 
civil tribunals in case of controversies. The 
meetings for worship and business were to be 
conducted as in ancient Quaker fashion, and the 
general doctrines, organization and habits of liv- 
ing were supposed to include all that was best 
in Quakerism, adapted to the changes which a 
century had wrought in the environment of the 
Society. Even less prominent, however, than in 
the regular body, was any statement of belief, 
and every man was permitted to be his own creed 
maker. 

One of their early demands was for the use of 


212 Quakers in the Revolution. 


one of the meeting-houses in the city. “We 
think it proper for us to use, apart from you, one 
of the houses built by Friends in this city... . 
We also mean to use the burial ground whenever 
the occasion shall require it.” This paper was 
presented to the Monthly Meeting of Friends 
in Philadelphia, on the 27th of July, 1781, 
and was not even read. This being equiv- 
alent to a refusal, the Free Quakers carried the 
case to the Legislature of the State in a form 
which would be likely to ensure their success. 

The sympathies of the Legislature and of the 
people in general were naturally with them. 
However, after carrying the question over for 
two sessions, the Assembly wisely decided not to 
interfere. 

On the one hand it was claimed that the regu- 
lar Society had no right to disown for actions 
sanctioned by the law of the land, and that those 
disowned were still in all essentials Friends, and 
hence entitled to a share in Quaker property; on 
the other hand, the right of every Society to 
make its own rules and enforce them when the 
conditions of membership were plainly stated, 
was strongly urged. It was claimed that in vio- 
lating the known order of the church, members 
practically severed the bonds which attached 


The Free Quakers. 213 


them to it, and by their own action excluded 
themselves from its benefits. The State had no 
right to interfere between a church organization 
and a member, for while liberty of conscience 
was a right of the individual, so freedom to make 
and enforce regulations was a prerogative of a 
society, and no individual could impose himself 
upon it except with its consent. 

The whole controversy was not conducted in 
the best of temper. The official papers were 
faultless, but the letters of the time show the 
bitterness of partisan spirit so characteristic of 
religious differences in general. 

Popular sympathy was with the new body, and 
the case was argued before the committee of the 
Assembly in the presence of a great company of 
interested listeners. James Pemberton describes 
the occasion under date of Ninth month 20th, 
1782: 


The committee intending to proceed on the business, 
first asked each party whether they were prepared; on 
our part they were answered that our Meeting for Suffer- 
ings, which represented our religious Society in the inter- 
yal of our Yearly Meeting had appointed us a committee 
to attend on the occasion and having a minute of our 
appointment we were ready to produce it, and we requested 
that Howell and Matlack* should be required to shew to 
the satisfaction of their committee their authority for 


*Tsaac Howell and White Matlack. 


214 Quakers in the Revolution. 


complaining and by whom they were deputed; upon which 
some argument ensued and §. Delany the chairman then 
mentioned that two petitions signed by 75 persons who 
had been disowned by the people called Quakers for bearing 
of arms had been presented to the House a few days past, 
and by special order was referred to the consideration of 
the committee, one of which he read importing “ that 
they utterly disclaimed the proceedings of the remon- 
strants, were well content that the estate of friends 
might continue under their own direction and praying 
that the request of the remonstrants might not be granted 
and that they looked upon the attempt thus to arraign and 
disturb us an invasion of the rights of toleration and 
religious liberty; which being the voluntary act of the 
petitioners unsolicited by us or any of us that I know 
of was not unfavorable to our cause. T. M.,* on hearing 
these petitions and fearing their effect made reply that if 
two persons only thought themselves aggrieved they had 
an undoubted right to redress but that he could procure 
many hundred to support them and that the signers to 
these opposite petitions might have their names inserted 
in the intended law to exclude them if they chose it. On 
our part it was further urged that the complainants ought 
also to make proof of the legality and justice of their 
claim and wherein they were aggrieved and some points 
of law being stated by N. W.+} on the rectitude of this 
proceeding occasioned a debate in the committee which 
being in public was some disadvantage to us as they 
had not the opportunity of so fully discussing the matter 
as the nature and importance of it required, and they 
should therefore have considered it among themselves; 
however they concluded to take the opinion of the House 
therefore but to proceed in hearing the complainants, when 
we also pleaded that T. M. should show in what capacity 
he appeared there, whether as counsellor or advocate for 
the remonstrants; whether being Secretary by order of the 


* Timothy Matlack. 
+ Nicholas Waln. 


The Free Quakers. 215 


Executive Council or as a party, having at our last inter- 
view acknowledged before our committee that his case 
did not come within the meaning or intent of the bill 
proposed to be brought before the House when liberty for 
it was granted. 

The committee proceeded to hear the complainants who 
produced several testimonies of divers monthly meetings 
against members disowned and some witnesses in support 
of the four first charges in their remonstrance, viz.: “‘ of 
persons being disowned for taking the Test of Allegiance, 
holding of offices, bearing of arms and the payment of 
taxes; as the testimonies were separately read and appeared 
to be genuine we did not disallow them, and in general 
being cautiously expressed they will do us no discredit in 
the view of religious considerate men. On the last charge 
in respect to the payment of taxes their evidences were 
few and very feeble, the testimonies being an account of 
the payments of fines in lieu of personal service and are 
instances of a double tax and fine. They also attempted, 
but ineffectually to prove that some members had been 
urged to renounce their allegiance before a magistrate as 
a condition of their being reinstated in which they will 
appear to have failed when the case is properly stated. 

The committee adjourned to meet again on Fourth-day 
afternoon. In the meantime they reported to the House 
how far they had proceeded and desired their opinion and 
direction of the questions proposed as before mentioned 
that H. and M. should prove their constituents and on 
what they founded their claims upon which the House 
determined to give no further instructions to their com- 
mittee. A debate ensued again on Fourth-day morning 
concerning the business which held late and I suppose 
was earnest. In the afternoon at the time appointed 
our committee went up to the chamber where we found 
the Clerk of the Assembly only except a crowd of people 
who followed us. He delivered us a copy of a minute of 
the House notifying us that there would be no further 
hearing before the committee on that day and told us 
he had orders to deliver a like copy to the remonstrants 
but that the business would be again taken up by the 


216 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Assembly the same afternoon as it was accordingly and 
concluded to be referred over to the succeeding Assembly 
so that we have hereby obtained a respite unexpectedly 
and shall have leisure to attend to the weighty concerns 
of our approaching Yearly Meeting. 


Several points brought out in this letter may 
deserve further notice. 

The petition signed by seventy-five disowned 
Friends against disturbing the property rights of 
the main body is an indication that at least that 
many did not desire a permanent separation, 
which would break up the integrity of the So- 
ciety; and though it was stated that a counter 
petition could be procured, signed by “ hun- 
dreds,” it is probable that not more than one hun- 
dred were actually associated in the movement. 
A private contemporary letter states that of the 
disowned Friends a majority were opposed to the 
action, and justified their own disownment. 

From an examination of many minute books 
it seems probable that James Pemberton was 
right when he said that members were not dis- 
owned for the simple payment of taxes to the 
revolutionary government unless they were 
specifically war taxes, or were exacted in lieu of 
personal service. He could not be certain of 
this, for each Monthly Meeting all over the 
province was to a certain extent a law unto itself 
in these matters. 


a lao 9 hag 


NICHOLAS WALN. 


FROM AN OLD ENGRAVING. 


The Free Quakers. 217 


The case of the regular Friends was much 
aided by the legal knowledge and acumen of 
Nicholas Waln. Before his active interest in 
Friendly matters he had been one of the shrewd- 
est, the wittiest and the most successful members 
of the Philadelphia bar. In a public meeting 
he had uttered a remarkable prayer of renun- 
ciation of his past ambitions, and gave himself 
over to the service of his church.* 

He became exceedingly useful. It is related 
of him that on a certain occasion, during the 
Free Quaker controversy, after a statement from 
certain of the ejected members as to the patriotic 
causes of their disownment, he turned to one of 
them whose well-known cause of stumbling was 
cock-fighting, and, pointing prominently to him 
in silence until the attention of the whole room 
was obtained, said impressively, “What wast thou 
disowned for?” A second and a third who hap- 
pened to be present, whose cases were also pub- 
lic, were treated in a similar way, and a marked 
impression was left that some at least of the com- 
plainants were not martyrs for the sake of 
freedom. 


* A mutilated edition of this prayer is, in Dr. Mitchell’s 
novel, “Hugh Wynne,” placed in the mouth of a mythical 
personage named Israel Sharpless. 


218 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The Assembly took no final action, but re- 
ferred the matter to the succeeding session. In 
the meantime something of a conservative reac- 
tion had come over the country. John Dickin- 
son was elected President of Pennsylvania after 
his period of unpopularity and practical banish- 
ment to Delaware, and the new Assembly was 
moderate. Timothy Matlack had lost his polit- 
ical influence. The question was evidently one 
over which a legislative body found it very in- 
convenient to exercise jurisdiction, for a decision 
would have far-reaching consequences, and the 
matter was allowed to drop. 

The Free Quakers had to look to their own 
exertions to provide a meeting-house. A lot was 
purchased at the southwest corner of Arch and 
Fifth Streets, and a building erected, which is 
still standing, and which bears upon it the in- 
scription: 

By general Subscription 
For the Free Quakers, erected 


In the year of our Lord 1783 
Of the Empire 8. 


It is said that when asked the meaning of the 
last line one of them replied, “I tell thee, 
Friend, it is because our country is destined to be 
the great empire over all this world.” 


FREE QUAKERS’ MEETING—HOUSE. 


FIFTH AND ARCH STREETS, PHILADELPHIA. 


wv 


> ed 


aa 
iP. 


wea 


te 

| ae 

at - , 

, a — 

as Ve a 
‘ Al he'd 
mn ary +24 


The Free Quakers. 219 


The subscription did not cause much difficulty. 
There was general sympathy with the patriotic 
Quakers, and Washington and Franklin, with 
many other prominent sympathizers, contrib- 
uted to the building. Meetings for worship were 
held in it till 1836. It is now rented, and the 
proceeds used for charitable purposes. 

Many of those who in the days of military ex- 
citement joined in the movement, afterwards re- 
turned to their original fold. Some joined other 
religious bodies. The Free Quakers gradually 
diminished in numbers, and when the meeting- 
house closed, practically ceased to exist as a re- 
ligious body. The descendants of the original 
members, perhaps one hundred and fifty in 
number, still maintain their organization, hold 
a Yearly Meeting, and quietly distribute the in- 
come in educational and charitable work. 

As a peaceful government extended its sway 
over the independent United States, the asperi- 
ties of feeling which had belonged to the revolu- 
tionary era subsided. The conscientiousness 
which had characterized many Friends in their 
refusal to bear arms for the American cause was 
more and more recognized. Their faithfulness 
as members of society in the performance of 
their civic duties, their justice and kindliness, 


220 Quakers in the Revolution. 


their quiet attention to duty and lack of desire 
for selfish preferment, made their rulers feel that 
if they would not fight for or against govern- 
ment, they possessed other qualities which made 
them valuable citizens. When Washington—of 
whom they always spoke with great respect, and 
who appreciated them far better than did those 
militant civilians, the Adamses of Massachusetts 
—became President, in 1789, they sent to hima 
deputation with the following address: 


Being met in our annual assembly for the well ordering 
of the affairs of our religious Society and the promotion of 
universal righteousness our minds have been drawn to 
consider that the Almighty who ruleth in Heaven and in 
the kingdoms of men having permitted a great revolution 
to take place in the government of this country, we are 
fervently concerned that the rulers of the people may be 
favored with the council of God; the only sure means to 
enable them to fill the important trust committed to their 
charge and in an especial manner that Divine wisdom and 
grace vouchsafed from above may qualify thee to fill up 
the duties of the exalted station to which thou art 
appointed. 

We are sensible thou hast obtained a great place in the 
esteem and affection of people of all denominations over 
whom thou presidest, and many eminent talents being com- 
mitted to thy trust we much desire they may be fully 
devoted to the Lord’s honor and service, that thus thou 
mayst be a happy instrument in his hands for the sup- 
pression of vice infidelity and irreligion and every species 
of oppression on the persons or concerns of men, so that 
righteousness and peace which truly exalt a nation may 
prevail throughout the land as the only solid foundation 
that can be laid for prosperity and happiness. 


“HIXIS FO ISVa WOOd ANO ‘LAaWLS (LUWUVW MON) HOH 


MOUD AA A 


IS QOH 


Wd NOOO f 


u 


chs 


SING CISaUd NAAM NOLONTHSV MA 


iy 


wl ie 


fata yt 


bia 


‘ 


| 
" 


"il il Ht 
{ 


The Free Quakers. 221 


The free toleration which the citizens of these States 
enjoy, in the public worship of the Almighty agreeably 
to the dictates of their consciences, we esteem among the 
choicest of blessings and we desire to be filled with fervent 
charity for those who differ from us in matters of faith 
and practice, believing that the general assembly of saints 
is composed of the sincere and upright-hearted of all na- 
tions, kingdoms and peoples so we trust we may justly 
claim it from others;—with a full persuasion that the Divine 
principle we profess leads into harmony and concord we 
can take no part in warlike measures on any occasion or 
under any power, but we are bound in conscience to lead 
quiet and peaceable lives in godliness and honesty among 
men, contributing freely our proportion to the indigencies 
of the poor, and to the necessary support of civil govern- 
ment; acknowledging those that rule well to be worthy 
of double honor—having never been chargeable from our 
first establishment as a religious Society with fomenting 
or countenancing tumults or conspiracies, or disrespect to 
those who are placed in authority over us. 

We wish not improperly to intrude on thy time 
or patience nor is it our practice to offer adulation to 
any. But as we are a people whose principles and conduct 
have been misrepresented and traduced we take the liberty 
to assure thee that we feel our hearts affectionately drawn 
towards thee and those in authority over us with prayers 
that thy presidency may under the blessing of Heaven be 
productive of morality and true religion and that Divine 
Providence may condescend to look down upon our land 
with a propitious eye, and bless the inhabitants with the 
continuance of peace, the dew of heaven, and the fatness of 
the earth and enable us gratefully to acknowledge these 
manifold mercies. 

And it is our earnest concern that he may be pleased 
to grant thee every necessary qualification to fill thy 
weighty and important station to his glory, and that finally 
when all terrestrial honors shall pass away thou and thy 
respectable consort may be found worthy to receive a 


222 Quakers in the Revolution. 


crown of unfading righteousness in the mansions of peace 
and joy forever. 
NICHOLAS WALN, Clerk. 


To this Washington replied: 
Gentlemen: 

I received with pleasure your affectionate address, and 
thank you for the friendly sentiments and good wishes 
which you express for the success of my administration 
and for my personal happiness. We have reason to rejoice 
in the prospect that the national government, which by 
the power of Divine Providence was formed by the com- 
mon councils and peaceably established by the common 
consent of the people will prove a blessing to every de- 
nomination of them; to render it such my best endeavors 
will not be wanting. Government being among other pur- 
poses instituted to protect the persons and consciences ‘of 
men from oppression it certainly is the duty of rulers 
not only to abstain from it themselves but according to 
their stations to prevent it in others. 

The liberty enjoyed by the people of these States of 
worshipping Almighty God agreeably to their consciences 
is not only among the choicest of their blessings but also 
of their rights. While men perform their social duties 
faithfully they do all that society or the State can with 
propriety expect or demand and remain responsible only 
to their Maker for the religion or mode of faith which they 
may prefer or profess. Your principles and conduct are 
well known to me, and it is doing the people called 
Quakers no more than justice to say that (except their 
declining to share with others in the burthens of common 
defence) there is no denomination among us who are more 
exemplary and useful citizens. I assure you very especially 
that in my opinion the conscientious scruples of all men 
should be treated with great delicacy and tenderness; and 
it is my wish and desire that the laws may always be ex- 
tensively accommodated to them as a due regard to the 
protection and essential interest of the nation may justify 


and permit. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 


The Free Quakers. 223 


With this exchange of letters—on the one 
hand attesting fidelity to the existing administra- 
tion, and on the other carrying a strong endorse- 
ment of the principles which had guided the past 
—the reconciliation between the Quakers and 
the government, which revolutionary events had 
somewhat strained, may be considered to have 
been perfectly accomplished. 


224 Quakers in the Revolution. 


CHAPTER X. 


FRIENDS AND SLAVERY. 


The Revolutionary War had for the time be- 
ing almost destroyed the influence of Friends 
over the politics of the State they had founded 
and so long controlled. They had opposed a 
war which was waged in support of independ- 
ence and which had been successful. It is true 
that the principles upon which they based their 
conduct had not been especially devised for the 
emergency, but had been firmly and clearly 
enunciated through one hundred years of his- 
tory. The course they took might properly have 
been expected of them by those who had been 
familiar with the record of their past. But to 
many in the nation these principles came as reve- 
lations of a new and dangerous tendency, develop- 
ing a course of action entirely unequal to the 
emergencies to which any government might be 
exposed. To others the Quakers seemed to be 
cowards or fanatics or hypocrites, or seekers after 
wealth and ease. 

None of these cared to see the Quakers restored 
to the position of influence they had held before 


bo 
bo 
Or 


Friends and Slavery. 


the war. Many felt that they had an unsettled 
grudge against them for their refusal to aid in 
the great struggle. The heroes of the war took, 
by virtue of the popular voice, the positions of 
honor and _ profit. 

Nor did the Quakers seem to wish it other- 
wise. They had had enough of government. 
The movement which began in 1756 against 
holding compromising offices gradually extended 
itself to avoid official connection with the State. 
This tendency was strengthened in the minds of 
the more strenuous Friends by the events of the 
war, and when, after a decade of peace, there 
seemed a disposition to turn again to Friends to 
find representatives in the Pennsylvania legis- 
lature, the Yearly Meeting, in 1791, advised: 

The concern and exercise which formerly attended the 
minds of Friends of this meeting respecting accepting of 
posts either in legislative or executive government or pro- 
moting the choice of members of our religious Society to 
such stations or mixing with others in their human policy 
and contrivance, being now revived, and the minutes and 
advices of the Yearly Meeting in 1758, ’62, 63, 64 and ’70 
being read, they were recommended to the observance of 
Quarterly and Monthly Meetings and of Friends in general, 


and it is directed that the said advices be read in said meet- 
ings. 


In one direction, however, they felt they had 
an especial duty to the State and the nation. 


226 Quakers in the Revolution. 


The last slaves held by Pennsylvania Quakers 
were manumitted, wherever legally possible, 
about the time of the battle of Yorktown. 

It had taken one hundred years of agitation 
to bring about this result. The German 
Quakers of Germantown had protested in 1688: 
“There is a liberty of conscience here which is 
right and reasonable, and there ought to be like- 
wise liberty of the body, except for evil doers, 
which is another case. But to bring men hither, 
or to rob and sell them against their will, we 
stand against.”” From that time on the move- 
ment for abolition had advanced.* In 1696 the 
Yearly Meeting advised not “to encourage the 
bringing in of any more negroes, and that such 
as have negroes be careful of them.” 

The Friends of Chester County were particu- 
larly urgent, and ceased not to press the matter 
on the attention of the Yearly Meeting. In 
1711 they reported that “ their meeting was dis- 
satisfied with Friends buying and encouraging 
the bringing of negroes.” The next year they 
asked that London Yearly Meeting, as the cen- 


*A full history of this movement among Friends over 
the continent will be found in detail in the publications of 
the American Society of Church History, vol. viii., written 
by Allen Clapp Thomas. 


Friends and Slavery. 227 


tral body, do something to bring about some con- 
certed action of all Friends the world over. But 
London was not ready, and in 1714 Philadelphia 
returns to the matter: 


We also kindly received your advice about negro slaves, 
and we are one with you that the multiplying of them 
may be of a dangerous consequence, and therefore a law 
was made in Pennsylvania, laying twenty pounds duty upon 
every one imported there, which law the Queen was pleased 
to disannul. We could heartily wish that a way might be 
found to stop the bringing in more here; or at least, that 
Friends may be less concerned in buying or selling of any 
that may be brought in; and hope for your assistance with 
the government if any farther law should be made dis- 
couraging the importation. We know not of any Friend 
amongst us that has any hand or concern in bringing any 
out of their own country; and we are of the same mind 
with you, that the practice is not commendable nor allow- 
able amongst Friends; and we take the freedom to acquaint 
you, that our request unto you was, that you would be 
pleased to consult or advise with Friends in other planta- 
tions, where they are more numerous than with us; because 
they hold a correspondence with you but not with us, and 
your meeting may better prevail with them, and your 
advice prove more effectual. 


In 1715, and again in 1716, the Chester 
Friends return to the charge: “ The buying and 
selling of negroes gives great encouragement for 
bringing them in.” To this the Yearly Meeting 
would only reply advising its members to avoid 
such purchases, and added: “This is only caution, 
not censure.” 


228 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Matters stood until 1729, when again, in re- 
sponse to another request from Chester, the meet- 
ing minuted “that Friends ought to be very 
cautious of making any such purchase for the 
future, it being disagreeable to the sense of this 
meeting.”” Advices to this effect were now given 
almost yearly, and in 1743 the following was 
added to the Queries: “ Do Friends observe the 
former advice of our Yearly Meeting not to en- 
courage the importation of negroes nor to buy 
them after imported?’ which, a few years later 
was strengthened into “Are Friends clear of im- 
porting or buying negroes, and do they use those 
well which they are possessed of by inheritance 
or otherwise, endeavoring to train them up in the 
principles of the Christian religion?” 

Thus the sentiment against slavery was fos- 
tered, and in 1758 the Yearly Meeting was 
brought to decisive action. After rejecting sev- 
eral compromises, tending to limit the advice as 
heretofore to the slave trade, the adopted min- 
ute stood: “This meeting fervently desires . . . 
that we would steadily observe the injunction 
of our Lord and Master to do unto others as we 
would they should do unto us, which it now ap- 
pears unto this meeting would induce such 
Friends who have slaves to set them at liberty, 


Friends and Slavery. 229 


making a Christian provision for them accord- 
ing to their ages.” A committee was appointed, 
with John Woolman at its head, to extend Chris- 
tian advice to slaveholders and persuade them to 
release their slaves. 

For twenty years after this date there are 
many records on the minutes of monthly meet- 
ing of voluntary or persuaded manumissions. 
They were made individually matters of record, 
to prevent the same negro ever again being 
seized. 

Some, however, held out, and in 1775, in the 
midst of the throes of the outbreaking war, the 
meeting decided it had waited long enough: 
“Such members as continued to hold slaves are 
to be testified against as other transgressors are 
by the rules of our Discipline for other immoral, 
unjust and reproachful conduct.” This was an 
instruction to the monthly meetings to take up 
each case individually, and, after careful labor 
and much persuasion, if he still remained recal- 
citrant, to disown him from the Society. This 
was done in some refractory cases. Others were 
complicated. Slaves were owned by minors; or 
husband and wife were not both members, and 
legal manumission could not be obtained, or 
other perplexing questions had to be settled: 


230 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Most of the Friends appointed to inquire into the cir- 
cumstances of several negro slaves on whom it is thought 
J- M. had a claim, report they have done accord- 
ingly, and are informed that his brother S——— M ‘ 
deceased, by his last will gave the remainder of his estate 
to him after the bills and legacies were paid and appointed 
him executor of his will, and that his said brother had 
two negro men and one negro boy slaves, but that he had 
not taken upon him the administration of the estate, and 
did not intend to do it on account of the negroes. They 
advised him that in case administration should be granted 
to another person and there should be other estate enough 
to pay the debts and legacies (which he seemed not to 
doubt of) that he should discharge the administrator from 
the negroes and set them free, otherwise if they should be 
sold to pay debts and legacies, and he receive the remainder 
of the estate he would be the cause of their continuation 
in bondage, which advice being considered is approved of. 


Faithfully and patiently the work was per- 
formed, and the end of the war saw the end of 
slavery in Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, and the 
voluntary compensation of many slaves for their 
labor while in bondage. This was advised in 
1779: “ The state of the oppressed people who 
have been held by any of us in captivity and 
slavery, calls for a deep inquiry and close exam- 
ination how far we are clear of withholding from 
them what, under such an exercise, may open to 
view as their just right.” Arbitrators decided 
the amount, and the former slaveholders liqui- 
dated an undemanded debt. 

The work was going on contemporaneously, 


Friends and Slavery. 231 


and at about the same rate, in the other Yearly 
Meetings. In the South the difficulties were far 
greater, mainly because the local laws forbade 
manumission. In some cases the expedient was 
resorted to of transferring them to the meetings, 
which arranged for their collective migration. 
Thousands of Southern Quakers removed to 
Ohio and Indiana to escape the blight of slavery. 
By 1790 slavery was at an end among the 
Friends of the United States, except in the few 
exceptional cases described above, and every 
Quaker was an abolitionist. 

They had not waited till this time, however, 
to urge upon legislative bodies the duty of abo- 
lishing first the slave trade, then slavery. 

William Penn was somewhat chagrined that 
when, in 1700, he and the Council proposed a law 
“for regulating negroes in their morals and mar- 
riages,” it was rejected by the Assembly. This 
was at the time when anti-Proprietary feeling 
was strong, and the Delaware assemblymen were 
members of the body. 

In 1705 the House again showed its animus 
by passing severe laws inflicting capital punish- 
ment against negroes guilty of certain heinous 
crimes, which were not capital crimes when com- 
mitted by the whites. In the same year they 


232 Quakers in the Revolution. 


taxed the owners of imported negroes forty shil- 
lings per head. This tax was again levied in 
1710, but repealed by the Queen in Council in 
1714. 

In 1712, William Southeby, a Friend, prayed 
the legislature to abolish slavery in Pennsyl- 
vania. ‘The House decided that this could not 
be granted. The same year, in response to many 
demands, they passed a bill levying the prohibi- 
tory duty of twenty pounds on every negro im- 
ported. This was also repealed by the Queen in 
Council. 

Various similar attempts at restrictive duties 
were made, to be met by the English veto, until, 
in 1729, one of two pounds was allowed to stand. 
This existed to 1761, when Friends secured its 
increase to ten pounds, against the petition of 
Philadelphia merchants, who declared that the 
trade of the Province was greatly hindered by 
the scarcity of laborers, and who wished to en- 
courage the importation of negroes. This nearly 
stopped the trade, and as Friends were all the 
time freeing their own negroes, the number of 
slaves in the Province was greatly decreased. In 
1773 the duty was made twenty pounds, and in 
1780 “an act for the gradual abolition of sla- 
very ” was passed. 


Friends and Slavery. 233 


President Reed said, in commending the law 
to the Assembly: “ Honored will that state be, 
in the annals of history, which shall first abolish 
this violation of the rights of mankind, and the 
memories of those will be held in grateful and 
everlasting remembrance who shall pass the 
law to restore and establish the rights of human 
nature in Pennsylvania.” 

This, the first abolition act of America, pro- 
bably drawn up by George Bryan, decreed that 
all negro children born after the first of March, 
1780, might be held to service until the age of 
twenty-one years, and no longer. There never 
were many slaves in Pennsylvania. Under the 
effect of the law the number decreased from 
about four thousand to about two hundred in 
1820. 

While the educative influence of Friends had 
had much effect in shaping public opinion in 
Pennsylvania, and their past efforts had reduced 
greatly the pro-slavery interest of the Province, 
they were hardly in a condition to exert much 
weight directly for this act. They were at their 
lowest point in popular estimation, and their 
advocacy of a measure would not be any great 
aid to its passage. It must have been with great 


234 Quakers in the Revolution. 


satisfaction, however, that they viewed this tri- 
umph of the principles of freedom. 

Having extinguished slavery among them. 
selves, and seen the slave trade dead and slavery 
dying in their own state, the Friends of Penn- 
sylvania turned their attention to the nation at 
large, and in 1783 addressed the impotent Con- 
gress of the Confederation: 


To the United States in Congress Assembled. The Ad- 
dress of the People called Quakers: «+ 


Being through the favor of Divine providence met as 
usual at this season in our annual assembly, to promote the 
cause of piety and virtue we find with great satisfaction our 
well meant endeavors for the relief of an oppressed part 
of our fellow men have been so far blessed, that those of 
them who have been held in bondage by members of our 
religious Society are generally restored to freedom, their 
natural and just right. 

Commiserating the afflicted state with which the inhabi- 
tants of Africa are very deeply involved by many professors 
of the mild and benign doctrines of the Gospel, and afflicted 
with a sincere concern for the essential good of our country, 
we conceive it our indispensable duty to revive in your view 
the lamentable grievance of that oppressed people as an 
interesting subject, evidently claiming the serious attention 
of those who are entrusted with the powers of govern- 
ment as guardians of the common rights of mankind and 
advocates for liberty. 

We have long beheld with sorrow the complicated evils 
produced by an unrighteous commerce which subjects many 
thousands of the human species to the deplorable state of 
slavery. 

The restoration of peace and restraint to the effusion of 
human blood, we are persuaded excite in the minds of many 
of all the Christian denominations gratitude and thank- 


— BBR EN TEY 


Friends and Slavery. 235 


fulness to the allwise Controller of human events, but we 
have ground to fear that some, forgetful of the days of dis- 
tress are prompted by an avaricious motive to renew the 
trade for slaves to the African coast, contrary to every 
humane and righteous consideration, and in opposition to 
the solemn declarations often repeated in favor of universal 
liberty; thereby increasing the too general torrent of cor- 
ruption and licentiousness, and laying a foundation for 
future calamities. 

We therefore earnestly solicit your Christian interposi- 
tion to discourage and prevent so obscene an evil, in such 
manner as under the influence of Divine wisdom you shall 
see meet. 

Signed in and on behalf of our Yearly Meeting held in 
Philadelphia, Fourth-day of Tenth month, 1783, by five 
hundred and thirty-five Friends. 


Nothing, however, could be expected from the 
Continental Congress, which had outlived its 
best days, and had never had any real power. 
But when the administration of Washington was 
securely seated, on the 3d of October, 1789, they 
sent an urgent address, signed by Nicholas 
Waln, clerk. In this they reiterated their belief 
that the Golden Rule was the only safe guide in 
national affairs; they called attention to their 
address of six years before, which, though it had 
apparently slumbered in Congress, had been fol- 
lowed by action in a number of states; they ex- 
pressed the opinion that the enormities of the 
slave trade called for its abolition at the earliest 
possible moment. 


236 Quakers in the Revolution. 


This address was taken to New York, where 
Congress was then in session, by a large com- 
mittee, and was reinforced by another from 
New York Yearly Meeting of Friends. The 
report the next year tells the story, so far as the 
actions of the committee were concerned: 


Eleven of our number, joined by our Friend John Par- 
rish, met at New York about the time prefixed by the 
Meeting for Sufferings and previous to our presenting the 
same, took opportunities with divers members of that body, 
in order to prepare their minds, also attended the Meet- 
ings for Sufferings there, and opened our business, which 
meeting uniting therein, drew up a short address on the 
same subject, acknowledging their concurrence with us, and 
appointed a committee to join. We then in conjunction, 
presented the two addresses, which were read, and a com- 
mittee appointed out of the House of Representatives, to 
consider them, after which we proceeded to visit the mem- 
bers generally, both Senators and Representatives, and 
were by many respectfully received, and had very free and 
full opportunities with them, and were also notified by the 
Committee of Congress of the time of their meeting with 
liberty to attend and open before them what to us ap- 
peared necessary. This we did at different times and 
found them very open, and notwithstanding from the first 
introduction of those addresses there were some members 
much opposed throughout, yet on the whole we were sat- 
isfied that a large majority were favorably disposed toward 
this business. This evidently appeared by the votes of 
the House, which some of our number found themselves 
engaged to attend, till the subject was more fully investi- 
gated, and the report of their select committee with the 
alterations of the committee of the whole House were en- 
tered on the journals of Congress, when way appeared 
open to leave the subject for the present in a state ready 
to be called up at any future time, and which subject we 


Friends and Slavery. 237 


apprehend to be weighty requiring the further continued 
care and concern of the Yearly Meeting. 
PHILADELPHIA, Ninth Month 30th, 1790. 


The reception of this address opened the first 
of the long line of acrimonious slavery debates, 
which lasted for seventy years. The arguments 
on either side of the great question which after- 
wards so emphatically divided the Union were 
enumerated in embryo, and the hot feeling which 
accompanied the discussion of the subject in later 
years here shows its dawning. Asa side light we 
have evidence both of the enmity and the 
respect felt towards the Quakers by the different 
elements of the population eight years after the 
close of the war. 

The debate began by the usual motion, made 
by Hartley, of Pennsylvania, to refer the address 
to a committee; he thought it a mark of respect 
due to so numerous and respectable a part of the 
community. 

The Southern members, Smith, of South Caro- 
lina, and Jackson, of Georgia, opposed this un- 
usual proceeding. Madison, of Virginia, called 
attention to the fact that the Constitution for- 
bade all interference with the slave trade prior to 
1808, and argued that no commitment could pos- 
sibly affect the question, and he was therefore in 


238 Quakers in the Revolution. 


favor of it. Stone, of Maryland, and Burke, of 
South Carolina, while respecting the Quakers, 
did not think they possessed more virtue than 
other people, and thought that the other side 
should be presented, and then all referred to- 
gether. It would injure the value of slave prop- 
erty to have it made the subject of special in- 
quiry in this way. 

Other Southern members saw in this move- 
ment but a prelude to an attack on slavery it- 
self. Nor did the Quakers deserve any special 
consideration. “Is the whole morality of the 
United States confined to the Quakers?” asked 
Jackson. “Are they the only people whose 
feelings are to be consulted on the present oc- 
casion? Is it to them we owe our present hap- 
piness? Was it they who formed the Constitu- 
tion? Did they by their arms or contributions 
establish our independence? I believe they were 
generally opposed to that measure.” 

The mattér went over. The next day the 
address was reinforced by a petition from the 
Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Aboli- 

\tion of Slavery, signed by the venerable Dr. 
Franklin, as President. The debate went on, 
however, on the commitment of the Quaker 
address. 


Friends and Slavery. 239 


Seott, of Pennsylvania, regretted that the 
abolition of the slave trade was prohibited by 
the Constitution; he looked upon it as one of 
the most abominable things on earth, nor could 
he conceive how one person could have a right 
of property in another. If he were a judge he 
did not know how far he could go in the direc- 
tion of emancipation, but he would go as far as 
he could. 

Jackson found a warrant for slavery in the 
Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and in all 
history. If he (Scott) were a Federal judge he 
might not know how far he could go, but his 
judgment would be of short duration in Geor- 
gia. Perhaps even the existence of such a judge 
might be in danger. 

Much stress was laid by the Southerners on 
the constitutional inability to grant the petition, 
and the consequent folly of committing it, to 
which it was replied that the commitment was 
only for purposes of discussion, and that from 
the Southern standpoint a quiet acquiescence 
would have saved all the discussion, which they 
deprecated. The motion to commit was carried, 
43 to 14. 

Five weeks later the House resolved itself into 


240 Quakers in the Revolution. 


a committee of the whole to discuss the report 
of the committee. 

The report stated the limited power of Con- 
egress in dealing with the traffic; that it could 
not prohibit the trade prior to 1808; that it 
could not decree emancipation, nor interfere in 
the general treatment of slaves in the States; 
that it had a right to lay a tax of ten dollars on 
importations and to regulate the African trade 
so as to secure humane treatment of the negroes; 
and finally it assured the memorialists that so 
far as its powers could go, it would endeavor to 
exercise them in the interests of justice, human- 
ity and good policy. 

A fierce debate immediately ensued. White 
and Brown, of Virginia, were opposed to some 
parts of the report as unnecessary, to other 
parts as mischievous. The interposition of the 
Quakers in the affairs of the Southern States 
had made slave property very precarious, and 
they hoped that Congress would not precipitate 
this great injury in order to gratify people who 
had never been friendly to the independence of 
America. 

The Quakers, said Burke, of South Carolina, 
were not the friends of freedom; in the late 
war they favored bringing this country under a 


Friends and Slavery. 241 


foreign yoke; they descended to the character of 
spies; they supplied the enemy with provisions; 
they were guides and conductors to the British 
armies; and whenever the American army came 
into their neighborhood they found themselves in 
the enemy’s country. Here Burke was called to 
order. 

His colleague, Smith, took up his parable, and 
called attention to the publication of 1775, 
“The Ancient Testimony and Principles of the 
Quakers,” in which they said that it was not 
their province to set up and pull down govern- 
ments—that was God’s prerogative; they were to 
pray for those in authority and live a peaceable 
life under them. Why did they not leave this 
matter also to God? They evidently did not be- 
heve what they professed, or else they had not 
virtue to practice what they believed. It was 
difficult to credit their pretended scruples, be- 
cause while they were exclaiming against the 
mammon of this world they were hunting after 
it with a step as steady as time and an appetite as 
keen as the grave. 

He appealed to Congress to allow each sec- 
tion to attend to its own abuses. The Southern 
people saw many evils in the North, but they 
let them alone. Each was aware of the existence 


Q49 Quakers in the Revolution. 


of weaknesses in the other when they formed the 
Union. The wise men of the North knew that 
slavery was ineradicably ingrafted upon the 
South, and the Southerners knew that Quaker 
doctrines had taken such deep root that resist- 
ance to them would be useless. “ We took each 
other with our mutual bad habits and respective 
evils, for better, for worse; the Northern States 
adopted us with our slaves, and we adopted them 
with their Quakers.” He argued that slavery 
was a necessity to South Carolina; no other form 
of labor was possible. The slaves would leave 
all the low land as soon as emancipated, and rice 
and indigo would no more be raised. Commerce 
and manufactures would suffer the country 
over. 

The slave trade was too valuable to be abused. 
Men would not destroy their own property, nor 
did slavery debase the owners. Witness the 
noble hospitality, the art, enterprise and ingenu- 
ity, the genuine love of freedom, which 
prompted all the sacrifices of the war, of South 
Carolina. 

The Quakers found a defender in Boudinot, 
of New Jersey. He was in favor of the resolu- 
tions, and thought an explicit declaration of 
the powers of Congress ought to allay rather than 


Friends and Slavery. 243 


excite fears. The ill treatment of the poor 
negroes on shipboard was no fiction. He quoted 
Anthony Benezet’s writings, and said he him- 
self had verified them by personal inguiry. He 
had little respect for the Biblical and historical 
arguments adduced. It is true the Egyptians 
held the Israelites in bondage, and he supposed 
supported the practice by the same arguments 
as the Southerners to-day. But God delivered 
them, and He is the same. He knew the Quak- 
ers. He was Commissary-General during the 
war, and he knew how much their voluntary 
eare of the suffering had relieved the situation. 
Some of them opposed the Revolution—so did 
individual Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and 
members of almost every other body; while the 
Quakers gave the patriot cause a Greene and 
a Mifflin. 

The resolutions, after being amended by large 
omissions, were carried against the Southerners 
by a vote of twenty-nine to twenty-five. The 
signing of the memorial of the Pennsylvania 
Society was almost the last act of the life of 
Dr. Franklin. He died very soon after the 
vote. His Society, having received the answer 
“that Congress had no right to interfere in the 
emancipation of slaves or their treatment in any 


244 Quakers in the Revolution. 


of the States,” sent in no more petitions, con- 
fining its efforts to purely philanthropic labors. 
In the second Congress, the declaration made 
in 1790 that the Government had power to mit- 
igate the evils of the slave trade, brought in a 
multitude of petitions from the North. They 
were, however, all smothered without debate, 
except one from Warner Mifflin. He had freed 
his own slaves on his Delaware plantation, and 
had made ample provision for their maintenance. 
He now sent a memorial to Congress asking the 
United States to do likewise. It was presented 
by Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, who dis- 
avowed any sympathy with the petition, and 
considered it inexpedient to bring the subject 
up. But he recognized the right of the memor- 
ialist to be heard. The Southerners were im- 
mediately in arms. Such things did immense 
mischief in the South, and did not ameliorate the 
condition of the negroes. They should not be 
presented to the House, and such summary ac- 
tion should be taken as to convince all enthu- 
siasts that the subject would never be considered. 
To this the House apparently agreed. On mo- 
tion it was resolved “that the paper purporting 


Friends and Slavery. 245 


to be a petition from Warner Mifflin be returned 
to him by the clerk of the House.” 

Spurred by the Haytien revolution, Congress 
acted favorably on a Quaker petition to pro- 
hibit the carrying of slaves from the United 
States to the West Indies, with large penalties 
for its evasion. But when Philadelphia Yearly 
Meeting, in 1797, again appealed to them, the 
discussion opened as fiercely as ever. The me- 
morial itself, like all Quaker papers, was quiet 
and moderate: 


To the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States in Congress assembled:— 

The memorial and address of the people called Quakers 
from their Yearly Meeting held in Philadelphia by ad- 
journments from the 25th of the Ninth Month to the 29th 
of the same inclusive, 1797. 

Respectfully sheweth: 

That being concerned at this our Annual Solemnity for 
the promotion of the cause of truth and righteousness, we 
have been favored to experience religious weight to at- 
tend our minds, and an anxious desire to follow after those 
things which make for peace; among other investigations, 
the oppressed state of our brethren of the African race has 
been brought into view and particularly the circumstances 
of one hundred and thirty-four in North Carolina, and 
many others whose cases have not so fully come to our 
knowledge, who were set free by members of our religious 
Society and again reduced to cruel bondage, under the 
authority of existing or retrospective laws. Husbands and 
wives and children separated one from another, which we 
apprehend to be an abominable tragedy; and with other 


246 Quakers in the Revolution. 


acts of a similar nature practised in other States has a ten- 
dency to bring down the judgments of a righteous God upon 
our land. 

This city and neighborhood and some other parts have 
been visited with an awful calamity, which ought to excite 
an inquiry into the cause and endeavors to do away those 
things which occasion the heavy clouds that hang over us. 
It is easy with the Almighty to bring down the loftiness of 
men by diversified judgments and to make them bear the 
Rod and Him that hath appointed it. 

We wish to revive in your view the solemn engagement 
of Congress, made in the year 1774, as follows: 

“And therefore we do for ourselves and the inhabitants 
of the several Colonies whom we represent, firmly agree and 
associate under the sacred ties of virtue, honor and love 
of our country, as follows: 

“Second Article. We will neither import nor purchase 
any slaves imported after the first day of December next, 
after which time we will wholly discontinue the slave 
trade, and will neither be concerned in it ourselves nor will 
we hire our vessels, nor sell our commodities or manu- 
factures to those who are concerned in it. 

“Third Article. And will discountenance and discourage 
every species of extravagance and dissipation, especially all 
horse-racing and all kinds of gambling, cock-fighting, exhi- 
hitions of shows, plays and other expensive diversions and 
entertainments.” 

This was a solemn league and covenant made with the 
Almighty in an hour of distress, and He is now calling 
upon you to perform and fulfill it, but how has this solemn 
covenant been contravened by the wrongs and cruelties 
practised upon the poor African race,—the increase of dis- 
sipation and luxury, the countenance and encouragement 
given to play-houses and other vain amusements, and how 
grossly is the Almighty affronted on the day of the cele- 
bration of Independence! What rioting and drunkenness, 
chambering and wantonness! to the great grief of sober 
inhabitants and the disgrace of our national character. 

National evils produce national judgments. We there- 


Friends and Slavery. 247 


fore fervently pray the Governor of the universe may en- 
lighten your understanding and influence your minds so as 
to engage you to use every exertion in your power to have 
these things redressed. 

With sincere desires for your happiness here and here- 
after, and that when you come to close this life, you may 
individually be able to appeal as a Ruler did formerly, 
“‘ Remember now O Lord I beseech thee how I have walked 
before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have 
done that which is good in thy sight,” we remain your 
friends and fellow citizens. 

Signed in and on behalf of the said Meeting. 


JONATHAN EVANS, 
Clerk to the Meeting this year. 


The Memorial was presented by Albert Gal- 
latin, of Pennsylvania, who, after its reading 
by the clerk moved its second reading. Har- 
per, of South Carolina, hoped not. This was 
not the first, second or third time the House 
had been troubled with similar petitions, which 
tended to incite the slaves to freedom; this and 
all other legislatures ought to set their faces 
strongly against such remonstrances. 

Thatcher, of Massachusetts, took the opposite 
view. If the Quakers thought themselves ag- 
grieved it was their duty to present the petition 
seventy times, or until it was attended to. 

(Rutledge, of South Carolina, would not ob- 
ject to the commitment of the petition if the 
committee would properly censure it. The body 


248 Quakers in the Revolution. 


which sent this petition should be censured. 
They had attemped to seduce the servants of 
gentlemen traveling to the seat of government. 
They were importuning Congress to interfere in 
a business which was none of their concern. 
But, not believing that such a censure would 
result, he would be in favor of laying the peti- 
tion on the table, or under the table, to have 
done with the business to-day and forever. When 
other nations were plunging in blood, here were 
these people trying to stir up a servile insurrec- 
tion. 

To this Gallatin replied that the memorial was 
only taking the ordinary course. It called atten- 
tion to certain free blacks afterwards enslaved 
in North Carolina. He did not think this was of ° 
a tendency dangerous to property or civil order. 
The moral character of the memorialists was 
suck that he believed they were not friends to 
any kind of disorder. The uncertainty as to 
what could be done was the very reason for com- 
mitment. 

Macon, of North Carolina, wished that all 
blacks were out of the country, and so did every 
gentleman in his State. He considered the 
Quakers not peacemakers, but thought they 
were continually endeavoring in the Southern 


Friends and Slavery. 249 


States to stir up insurrection among the negroes. 
They were Tories in the war, and only began to 
set their negroes free when the State law prohib- 
ited it. The petition was only to sow dissension. 

The Friends found a defender in Bayard, of 
Delaware. He believed they were respectable 
and obedient, and contributed cheerfully to the 
support of government. The petition ought to 
be committed out of respect to them, though he 
believed the Congress had, contrary to the claims 
of other gentlemen, authority over the case of 
these free negroes relegated to slavery. 

Nicholas, of Virginia, would be glad to have 
slavery investigated. He thought it would help 
it. The Southerners were unfortunate in hay- 
ing to hold slaves, but they did not wish to cover 
up any evils. He was in favor of commitment. 

Blount, of North Carolina, explained how the 
freed negroes had been re-enslaved in a perfectly 
legal and proper way. 

So the debate continued, a general disposition 
appearing in the Virginia representatives and all 
further North to admit the iniquity of slavery, 
the desirability of inquiring into its operations, 
and of abolishing the foreign trade as soon as 
they constitutionally could. Georgia and the 
two Carolinas were violently opposed to all action 


250 Quakers in the Revolution. 


except summary dismissal of the memorial, and 
could feel no respect for the memorialists, who 
were sitting in the gallery in a body while the 
debate went on. 

At the final vote no opposition appeared to the 
commitment. 

It is not the purpose of this chapter to carry 
the history of the relation of Friends to slavery 
into the present century. They were constant 
in their opposition to it, and the ranks of the 
Pennsylvania abolitionists were largely filled 
with them. As violence increased on both sides 
and war loomed up in the foreground, many of 
them began to deprecate the radical views of the 
extremists as to the proper methods to employ, 
but to a man they opposed slavery. And when 
war came, a war on an evil against which they 
were committed by every item of their history 
and every instinct of their religion, they could 
not join in it, but they could thankfully say, in 
the spirit of Southeby, Woolman, Benezet and 
Mifflin, and in the words of their own poet, 


LAUS DEO. 


Tt is done! 
Clang of bell and roar of gun, 
Send the tidings up and down. 
How the belfries rock and reel; 
How the great guns, peal on peal, 
Fling the joy from town to town! 


Friends and Slavery. 251 


Ring, O, bells! 
Every stroke exultant tells 
Of the burial hour of crime. 
Loud and long, that all may hear; 
Ring, for every listening ear, 
Of eternity and time! 


Let us kneel; 
God’s own voice is in that peal, 
And this spot is holy ground. 
Lord forgive us! What are we 
That our eyes this glory see, 
That our ears have heard the sound! 


252 Quakers in the Revolution. 


CHAPTER XI: 


FRIENDS WHO HAVE BEEN PROMINENT IN PUBLIC 
LIFE SINCE THE REVOLUTION, 


The tendency to non-participation in public 
affairs, which first showed itself about the middle 
of the eighteenth century, was, as we have 
seen, strengthened by the Revolution. For 
a time Friends had but little share in official 
life. This was not only the will of their 
fellow -citizens, but their own wish as 
well. The more intelligent people of the 
State soon, however, saw the evil effects of this 
estrangement and sought to end it. The reasons 
for the Quaker course during the Revolution 
came to be better understood and appreciated, 
and it was seen that the same principles would 
make them most loyal subjects of the new Re- 
public. In some sections around Philadelphia it 
was, moreover, exceedingly difficult to procure 
fit officials, so largely were the men of training 
and integrity within the ranks of the Society. 

An excellent, because unbiased, authority 
concerning the political condition of Friends 


Prominent Friends. 253 


shortly after the Revolution is a book* by an in- 
telligent Frenchman who traveled through the 
country in 1788. 


Tt was at this epoch [the Revolution] particularly that 
an animosity was excited against them [the Quakers] which 
is not yet entirely allayed. Faithful to their religious prin- 
ciples, they declared they could take no part in the war, and 
disavowed or excommunicated every member of their So- 
ciety who served with either the American or the British 
army. . . . Notwithstanding my principles, I do not the 
less think that the violent persecution of the Quakers for 
their pacific neutrality was essentially wrong. 

If their refusal had been the first of this kind; if it had 
been dictated solely by their attachment to the British cause; 
if it had only served them to conceal the secret proofs which 
they might have given of this attachment, certainly they 
had been culpable and perhaps persecution had been lawfu’. 
But this neutrality was enjoined upon them by the religious 
opinions which they profess, and which they have practised 
from their origin. But exclusive of this, whatever prejudiced 
or ill-informed writers may have asserted, the truth, which I 
have taken great pains to obtain, is that the majority of the 
Quakers did not incline more to one party than to the other; 
and that they did good indifferently to both, and in fact to 
all those who stood in need of assistance. Ifsome of the So- 
ciety of Quakers served in the British army, there were some 
likewise who served in the American army—and amongst 
others may be mentioned the names of Generals Greene, 


*“* Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats-unis de ]’Amerique Sep- 
tentrionale fait en 1788; par J. P. Brissot (Warville), Citoyen 
Francais.’ The portion here translated is omitted in the Eng- 
lish edition of 1792. See Hazard’s Register of Pennsylvania, 
Vol. VIII., page 315. 


254 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Mifflin and Lacy; but the Society excommunicated indiffer- 
ently all those who took up arms. 

I have heard no one speak more impartially of the 
Quakers than this celebrated man [Washington ].whose spirit 
of justice is particularly remarkable. He acknowledged to 
me that in the course of the war he kad entertained an un- 
favorable opinion of the Society; he, in fact, knew little of 
them, because at that period there were few members of the 
sect in Virginia. He attributed to their political sentiments 
what was the effect of their religious principles. When 
he encamped in Chester county, principally inhabited by 
Quakers, he supposed himself to be in the enemy’s country, 
as he could not induce a single Quaker to act for him in the 
character of aspy. But no one served as a spy against him 
in the employ of the British army. 

General Washington, haying since pater understood the 
spirit of the Society, concludes by esteeming them. He 
acknowledged to me that, on considering the simplicity of 
their manners, their fondness for economy, the excellence of 
their morals, and the good example they afforded, joined to 
the attachment they showed for the Constitution, he re- 
garded them as the best citizens of the new government, 
which required a great degree of obedience and the banish- 
ment of luxury. 


Under these circumstances political prefer- 
ment was difficult for loyal Friends. Individuals 
of character and moral purpose had, however, 
their influence upon public opinion, whether in 
office or out. As time wore on and asperities 
‘lessened, Friends, as they had capacities for pub- 
lic service, were called upon to occupy positions 
of trust and influence in politics, in philan- 


Prominent Friends. 255 


thropy, and in movements for social and moral 
reform. Later still, the intricacies of political 
machinery and the self-seeking and immoral 
means used to secure nominations and carry elec- 
tions, have deterred many from taking up the 
career of politicians. 

It is proposed in the present chapter to trace 
the lives of a few Friends who in each of these 
stages have borne the Society name into public 
life. 


Warner Mirrrrn.—Perhaps no one is more 
typical of the position taken by public-spirited 
Friends about Revolutionary times than War- 
ner Mifflin, whose name has already appeared 
on these pages. It may be denied that he be- 
longs at all to the class of publie-spirited Friends, 
for he held but one political office. He was Jus- 
tice of the Peace for one term; and though he 
performed the duties faithfully, he never felt at 
home in them. Other offers came to him, for 
he was a man of family and financial standing; 
but he declined them all. Yet he had great in- 
fluence,—if not in partisan politics, in the larger 
field of public policy. 

The French traveler quoted above says: 


I was sick, and Warner Mifflin came to see me. It is he 


256 Quakers in the Revolution. 


who first freed all his slaves ; it is he who, without a pass- 
port, traversed the British army and spoke to General Howe 
with so much firmness and dignity; it is he who, fearing not 
the effects of the general hatred against the Quakers, went at 
the risk of being treated as a spy to present himself to Gen- 
eral Washington to justify to him the conduct of the 
Quakers; it is he who, amid the furies of the war, equally a 
friend to the French, the English and the Americans, carried 
generous succor to those among them who were suffering. 
Well, this angel of peace came to see me. 


He was a man whose pure ideals of living, 
supersensitiveness to conscientious impulses and 
willingness to make personal sacrifices, remind 
one of his co-laborer, John Woolman. But he 
had larger ideas than John Woolman. He was 
a broad-thinking patriot, conscious of the call 
to public as well as denominational service, and 
of the responsibility for the performance of his 
full duties to the state. With fidelity he fol- 
lowed the promptings of his inward divine guide, 
that led him into a field of labor which made his 
influence felt in legislative halls and executive 
mansions. Few men have been more abused 
than he, and at the time few received less credit 
for successful effort, or cared less for it. 

He inherited a large plantation with a 
number of slaves on the Eastern Shore of Vir- 
ginia. He inherited also birthright membership 


Prominent Friends. 257 


in the Society of Friends, though sixty miles 
distant from any others of that profession. Be- 
fore he reached majority he had determined not 
to be a slaveholder, and as soon as he had a sep- 
arate establishment he freed all of his own and 
his wife’s slaves. His father soon followed him, 
and in the midst of one of the oldest and most 
confirmed slaveholding communities of the 
South these men bore a suffering testimony to 
freedom. He paid back to his ex-slaves the value 
of their labor after twenty-one years of age; he 
loaned them money to secure land and imple- 
ments; he refused to be executor of an estate 
which involved the selling of negroes; and he 
was ready to enter heartily into the desire of 
Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, of which he was a 
member, to have its skirts cleared of slavehold- 
ing, and was gratified to see the efforts succeed. 

He had not recovered from the obloquy which 
his course had brought upon him at the hands of 
his neighbors, when a new scruple of conscience 
came to trouble him. In accordance with the 
customs of the times, he “ kept the bottle and the 
bowl on the table from morning till night,” and. 
generously dispensed the contents to his laborers. 
This he now felt to be wrong. He had freed his 
slaves, and feared that without liquor he could 


258 Quakers in the Revolution. 


not secure help to harvest his grain. But con- 
science triumphed, and intoxicants departed. 

All of this was before the Revolution. When 
the war opened he was held as a Tory, and this 
was an additional burden. He was an ultra 
peace man, refusing to aid in any way a govern- 
ment at war, even to the extent of using the 
paper money of the Continental Congress. It 
required no little courage to live out in a hostile 
community these successive unpopular customs, 
and his property and even his life were in dan- 
ger; but he was preserved by the singular purity 
and quietness of his life, which disarmed oppo- 
sition. “If everything we possessed was seized 
for the purpose of supporting war, and I was in- 
formed it should all go unless I voluntarily gave 
a shilling, I was satisfied I should not so redeem 
it.” Such faithfulness could not but be re- 
spected. 

He recovered the favor of all who knew him, 
and spent the rest of his life in the furtherance 
of moral causes with remarkable success. He 
was on almost every committee of the Yearly 
Meeting and the Meeting for Sufferings. He 
visited Howe and Washington during the war; 
he appeared before the Virginia Assembly in 
1782, and the year following before the Con- 


Prominent Friends. 259 


tinental Congress. The first visit was satisfac- 
tory, and resulted in the passage of a bill admit- 
ting of emancipation. He was in frequent com- 
munication with public men and legislative 
bodies, and his close logic and earnest singleness 
of purpose were always influential. In 1791 he 
sent his memorable appeal to Congress, which 
stirred up one of the most acrimonious debates 
of that body, and which was discourteously re- 
turned to him. He died in 1798, at the age of 
53, having taken the yellow fever during his at- 
tendance at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. 


Dr. Grorce Logan.—lIf Warner Mifflin is 
typical of the position of the less ambitious por- 
tion of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, it might 
be expected that the Logan family would furnish 
an example of the more active political life 
which still existed in its membership. 

Dr. George Logan was the son of William 
Logan, who was, for a long time prior to the 
Revolution, the agent of the Penn family, and 
member of the Governor’s Council; and the 
grandson of James Logan, except the Founder 
the most conspicuous man in the annals of early 
Pennsylvania. He had all the education which 
could be furnished to a young Philadelphian of 
means and cultured family traditions, in Amer- 


260 Quakers in the Revolution. 


ica and England. He was twenty-two years old 
when the Revolution broke out, and during the 
trying times when the war raged around Phila- 
delphia and his old home at Stenton was rav- 
aged, he was engaged in medical study abroad. 
He returned in 1780, and soon after married the 
accomplished Deborah Norris, whose uncle and 
great-uncle, Isaac Norris, Junior and Senior, 
had held most honorable positions in the public 
life of the Colony. The dilapidated condition of 
the estate decided him to abandon medicine and 
turn his attention to farming, and he pursued 
it with scientific skill and great enthusiasm. 
His farm became a model, and his services to 
agriculture, by experiments and writings, consti- 
tuted an important claim to regard. 

His political life began with a seat in the 
Pennsylvania Legislature, and he prepared to 
fulfil his duties with the painstaking study and 
conscientious fidelity which was in accord with 
the best traditions of the times. Unlike most of 
his co-religionists he was a Democrat, an admirer 
of Jefferson, and in general agreement with the 
French. The excesses of the Parisian mob threw 
public sympathy for a time to the side of the 
Federalists, and the folly of the French ministry 
and their ambassador, Genet, seemed about to 


Prominent Friends. 261 


precipitate a war with a recent ally. Under 
these circumstances Dr. Logan concluded to visit 
France, and, without commission or authority 
except personal letters from Governor McKean 
and Thomas Jefferson, to compose the differ- 
ences by endeavoring to abate the arrogance of 
the French rulers. | 

War was averted, and the American army, 
which Washington was withdrawn from his re- 
tirement to command, was disbanded. How 
much of this was due to Logan is uncertain, and 
will probably never be known. He had numerous 
interviews with Talleyrand, Lafayette, and other 
men of influence. Crews of American ships in 
France that had been imprisoned with a high 
hand were released, and the French embargo was 
lifted. These were the main ostensible griev- 
ances, and their removal paved the way to peace. 

The Federalists ridiculed the self-appointed 
mission, and passed the “ Logan Act,” making 
such an unauthorized negotiation a “high mis- 
demeanor,” punishable with fine and imprison- 
ment. The only case in which this act has been 
invoked was in 1899, when another private citi- 
zen of Philadelphia attempted in a similar way 
to avert the Spanish War. 

The obloquy he received at the hands of the 


262 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Government and the Federalists generally did 
not prevent his election to the Pennsylvania 
House of Representatives by a large majority, 
in 1798, during his absence from home. He was 
influential here in advocating measures for the 
advancement of agriculture and manufactures; 
and in 1801 he was elected a Senator of the 
United States. His reélection, in 1807, was as- 
sured, but he declined. 

Though coming into office as a Democrat and 
a friend of Jefferson, he was deeply grieved at 
the discharge of faithful officials of the opposite 
party, a practice which was then introduced into 
the government. Still more did he object to the 
tendency to embroil the nation in a war with 
England. After his term expired, in 1808, he 
again went to Europe, hoping to use some infiu- 
ence to soften the heated feelings which pre- 
vailed. In this he was not successful, and the 
war of 1812 followed. The latter part of his 
life till his death in 1821 he spent at Stenton, 
exercising a generous hospitality to men of note 
of all parties, which abundant means and the 
manners of a gentleman enabled him to dispense. 
Yet his life was simple, sincere and democratic. 

A biographer says of him: “He was prob- 
ably the only strict member of the Society of 


Prominent Friends. 263 


Friends that ever sat in the United States Sen- 
ate.” This is hardly correct, as Jonathan Chace, 
of Rhode Island, must certainly be placed in this 
list. That Dr. Logan was sincerely attached to 
the religious connection of his ancestors admits 
of no doubt. He was a regular attender of their 
religious meetings, and worked valiantly for the 
causes of peace and liberty for the\slaves, He 
did not, however, in his public life, even to the 
extent of his cousin, John Dickinson, adopt their 
forms of speech, nor was he, as was Warner Mif- 
flin, a zealous working member of their church 
committees. His high ideals, pure life, and con- 
sistent faithfulness to well-considered concep- 
tions of political duty were held in the highest 
honor, and his relation to his church was not un- 
like that of his distinguished grandfather. 


Houmeurey Marsnart.—The Quaker yeo- 
manry of the counties around Philadelphia have 
been remarkable for their strong morality and 
their intellectual cultivation. They had not the 
advantage of high-grade schools. Their excel- 
lent primary schools gave all of them the ele- 
ments of education, and their mental vigor lifted 
the best of them, using what advantages they 
could lay their hands on, to the level of well- 


264 Quakers in the Revolution. 


trained and well-informed men. Neighborhood 
libraries sustained by annual subscriptions ex- 
isted among them. These eschewed all fiction, 
and were filled with carefully-selected biog- 
raphy, history, travels and science. Many a vig- 
orous boy dates his intellectual awakening to 
these opportunities, and many a farmer’s home 
during the winter evenings was the scene of 
profitable reading, of which the whole family 
shared the benefit. A few, while retaining the 
simple farm habits of life, performed work of 
permanent value in science. 

Humphrey Marshall was a_ hard-working 
farmer. With his own hands he built his stone 
house and did his full share of rural labor. But 
that he had an eye to scientific pursuits as well, 
is shown by the “ hot-house” for rare plants he 
constructed in one corner of his dwelling, and 
the observatory he made on the roof. In 1773 
he planned and began to create at Marshallton, 
in Chester County, his Botanie Garden, soon to 
be filled with the most curious trees and shrubs 
of his own and other countries. Aided by his 
nephew, Dr. Moses Marshall, he explored Amer- 
ica, and gathered all that was interesting for his 
own garden, and for the still more noted one of 
Dy. Fothergill in London, who in neat terms 


Prominent. Friends. 265 


acknowledged his indebtedness to the Chester 
county farmer. In 1785 he published his 
>a volume of two 
hundred pages, “the first truly indigenous bo- 
tanical essay published in the western hemis- 
phere.” * In America it was ahead of its time, 
and but little read; but it received marked atten- 
tion from the botanists of Europe. He spent his 
old age partially blind in wandering about his 


“ Arbustum Americanum,’ 


extensive gardens, watching as best he could the 
development of his favorite plants. 

In local affairs he was always active. At one 
time he was county treasurer, and at another he 
was a trustee of the loan office established by the 
Legislature of Pennsylvania. He was interested 
in the erection of the county almshouse, and was 
among the most active in projecting and organ- 
izing the school at Westtown. Of this latter en- 
terprise he was a member of the first committee, 
and his Society honored him with every mark of 
confidence and esteem. He died in 1801, in his 
eightieth year. “ He was my ideal of a sage who 
had given his days and nights to meditation and 
study,” said a young man who knew him in later 
life. 


* Dr, William Darlington. 


266 Quakers in the Revolution. 


JonatHan Roserts.— Comparatively few 
of the Friends followed Dr. Logan into 
the Democratic party. They were gener- 
ally Federalists. Those few, when slavery 
and Andrew Jackson came up as national 
issues, generally deserted Democracy and be- 
came Whigs. To this class belongs Jonathan 
Roberts. He was born in Montgomery county 
in 1771, was elected to the Assembly in 1798 
and to the State Senate in 1807. He was Con- 
gressman from 1811 to 1814, and for the vigor 
with which he supported the war of 1812, or for 
an irregular marriage, lost his birthright among 
Friends. He achieved a large reputation for 
ability and integrity, was trusted by President 
Madison, and was looked upon as the representa- 
tive in the House of the Secretary of the Treas- 
ury, Albert Gallatin. In 1814 he was elected 
United States Senator, and served his term. 
While a Democrat he was intensely anti-slavery. 
A perusal of his manuscript journal leaves the 
impression, of a man of strong convictions, to 
which he was faithful, and of Democratic feel- 
ings, which he directed against the aristocratic 
tendencies of the Federalists, including many of 
his relatives among Friends, but having very 
little of the marks of Quakerism except moral 


Prominent Friends. 267 


earnestness. He was bitterly opposed to Jackson 
and his principles and methods, and was a Whig 
delegate to the convention which nominated 
Harrison and Tyler in 1840. When Harrison 
was elected he appointed Roberts Collector of 
the Port of Philadelphia. When Tyler became 
President, Roberts sturdily refused either to dis- 
charge the employees of the office to make room 
for partisan friends of the President, or to re- 
sign. He died in 1854. 


Rozsert Waty.—The name of Nicholas Waln 
has already been mentioned in these pages. 
After a brilliant career at the bar, and the accu- 
mulation of a large fortune, he made a remark- 
able renunciation of the worldly preferment 
which was in his grasp, and became a Friend of 
the most devoted and consistent kind. During 
and after the Revolutionary War his services to 
his denomination were of the highest value. 

His cousin, Robert Waln, less “ consistent,” 
perhaps, and less brilliant, possessed qualities 
which gained him universal respect and every 
political position he desired. He was a Quaker 
shipping merchant, of perfect integrity and great 
enterprise. Those were the days when politics 
sought the best and most worthy citizens for pro- 


268 Quakers in the Revolution. 


motion, and this was emphatically true of the 
Federalist party. Robert Waln, after several 
years’ service in the State Legislature, was sent to 
Congress in 1798. The election of Jefferson and 
the Democratic triumph of 1800 left his party 
in a small minority in the House, but he faith- 
fully and intelligently fulfilled his duties. He 
presented an anti-slavery petition, around which 
raged one of ‘the fiercest controversies concern- 
ing that heated subject; and sustained his part 
with dignity and ability. After two terms he 
declined further participation in public life, and 
was engaged in large cotton and iron enterprises 
at Trenton and Phenixville. This made him 
examine, perhaps not altogether impartially, the 
subject of protection, then looming up as a po- 
litical question. He became an authority, and 
his papers supplied the cause with facts, figures 
and arguments of high value. 

He was greatly interested in the Quaker dif- 
ferences of 1827 and adjacent years, and wrote 
“Seven Letters to Elias Hicks,” which were pub- 
lished, and are forcible presentations of his 
views. He was for a long time member of the 
City Councils; he was President of the Cham- 
ber of Commerce, of the Philadelphia Insurance 
Company, of the Mercantile Library Company; 


Prominent Friends. 269 


Director of the Pennsylvania Hospital and of 
the Bank of North America, and Trustee of the 
University of Pennsylvania. In the will of 
Stephen Girard he was named as one of the Trus- 
tees of his vast estate. No Philadelphian of his 
day was more honored and respected. He died 
in 1836, in the seventy-first year of his age. 

Robert Waln is one of the long list of Friends 
who were active and prominent in the manage- 
ment of the civic, financial and benevolent insti- 
tutions of Philadelphia. The Pennsylvania Hos- 
pital from its beginning has had perhaps perma- 
nently a majority of its Board members of the 
Society of Friends. This prominence has been 
largely due to the fidelity with which they have 
discharged their duties, and the resulting confi- 
dence of the community. They generally 
eschewed politics, as the term is usually under- 
stood. They were, however, not infrequently 
members of the unpaid, and for some time hon- 
orable, City Councils. 


Samvet Coates, when the Revolutionary War 
was ended, was willing to take the place in pub- 
lic affairs for which his culture and abilities and 
character fitted him. He had received an educa- 
tion which made him familiar with classical 


270 Quakers in the Revolution. 


authors, and a business training of a thorough 
sort. He accumulated a competence in mercan- 
tile and shipping ventures. In 1784, at the age 
of thirty-six, he was made Treasurer of the Phil- 
adelphia Library Company, and he held this po- 
sition, or a similar one under the same directors 
for the Loganian Library, for thirty-two years. 
One year later he began his long and useful ca- 
reer as Manager of the Pennsylvania Hospital, 
finally, in/1812, becoming the President of the 
Board He resigned, after forty-one years of 
labor, on account of age and infirmity. His 
period of service as overseer of “The Public 
Schools founded by Charter in the Town and 
County of Philadelphia,” now usually called the 
Penn Charter School, covered thirty-seven years, 
from 1786 to 1823. He was a director of the 
first Bank of the United States, from 1800 to 
1812, when it wound up its concerns. No one 
was more trusted by Stephen Girard, and this 
trust was fruitful of many donations by the great 
“mariner and merchant”’ to charitable institu- 
tions in which Samuel Coates was interested. In 
politics he was a strong Federalist, so strong that 
Girard charged him sportively not to give any 
aid to suffering Frenchmen, for it would give 
too great a wrench to his sympathies. 


Prominent Friends. O71 


He lived a cheerful, useful and dignified life, 
and died in 1830, nearly eighty-two years old. 
His portrait by Sully, in the possession of the 
Pennsylvania Hospital, shows the kindly, earnest 
face, the sturdy figure and the Friend’s garb. 


CapwALADER Evans was another representa- 
tive of the active Quaker life of the same time. 
He was born in Montgomery county in 1762, 
and made his mark as a surveyor. In 1790 he was 
sent to the Legislature, and served about twelve 
years, for a time as Speaker of the House. Later 
he moved to Philadelphia, and became Director 
of the second Bank of the United States. He 
strongly urged the erection of a canal along the 
Schuylkill, and became the first President of the 
Company. In 1840, as an old man, he was one 
of the electors that made William H. Harrison 
President of the United States. 


Rozerts Vaux was educated at the Friends’ 
“Public Schools.” He engaged in business for a 
few years only, when, deeply impressed by the 
death of his sister, with great solemnity he re- 
solved to devote his life to the good of his fellow- 
men. ‘This devotion never flagged to the end of 
his days. 

Any one who has followed the ragged attempts 


272 Quakers in the Revolution. 


which Pennsylvania made to secure a general sys- 
tem of education after the Revolution, will have 
respect for the courage of any one willing to at- 
tack the gigantic problem. This was one of the 
first of the public enterprises of Roberts Vaux. 
The founder of the Lancasterian system, himself 
a Friend, after quarreling with his London sup- 
porters, found his way to Philadelphia. Roberts 
Vaux had been endeavoring for several years, as 
president of a committee to advance the cause 
in Philadelphia, to devise some means to secure 
education for the poor. Taking advantage of 
Lancasterian enthusiasm he established a num- 
ber of schools. The special mode proved a 
failure, but public attention had been drawn to 
the subject, and by the time the Legislature was 
ready to adopt any decisive measures under the 
leadership of Governor Wolf, Thaddeus Stevens, 
Samuel Breck, and Dr. George Smith, of Dela- 
ware county, Roberts Vaux was able to assure 
them of the hearty codperation of Philadelphia, 
which had been brought about largely by his de- 
voted and intelligent labors. 

He afterwards was President of the Pennsyl- 
vania Society for the Promotion of Public 
Schools, and expanded his interests from city to 
state. How much is owing to the judicious and 


Prominent Friends. 273 


energetic operations of this society in finally se- 
curing an efficient state public school system can- 
not well be estimated. 

In 1821 he was appointed a Commissioner for 
organizing and erecting the Eastern Peniten- 
tiary, and for deciding on the regulations there 
to be adopted. For over twenty years he was 
the active spirit of the “ Philadelphia Society for 
Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons.” The 
Eastern Penitentiary, with its policy of solitary 
confinement at labor, with moral and religious 
instruction, became under his care an institution 
which served as a model for American prisons 
and received the encomiums of European travel- 
ers and penologists generally. 

Nor were his efforts confined to the elabora- 
tion of a system. His personal benevolence 
made him a friend and adviser of the convicts, 
and gave him an interest in their welfare after 
their discharge. 

He was also a Manager of the Pennsylvania 
Hospital, and had a large share in the creation of 
the Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, 
and also of the Institution for the Deaf and 
Dumb. In fact, the mere list of the institutions 
and societies with which he was connected would 
embrace almost everything of a general benevo- 


274 Quakers in the Revolution. 


lent character in Philadelphia. He vigorously 
took up the cause of temperance, and was Presi- 
dent of the State Temperance Society. The Ap- 
prentices’ Library, the Saving Fund Society and 
the House of Refuge owe their origin largely to 
his efforts and impulses. 

His literary efforts included a biography of 
Anthony Benezet, a kindred spirit, and of Ben- 
jamjn Lay and Ralph Sandiford. Historical and 
ilosophical societies found in him an active 
official. 

In 1833 he was appointed by the President a 
Director of the Bank of the United States. He 
was also requested to accept a place as Commis- 
sioner to treat with the Indians, but this tender 
he declined on account of the use of the military 
involved in the duties. 

Thus we have a meagre outline of a useful and 
very busy life which ended before he was fifty 
years old. “ He was,” says an acquaintance, “a 
firm and consistent member of the Society of 
Friends, and his opinions were in conformity 
with the approved faith of that body.” It was 
evident that a strong religious principle ani- 
mated his life, and when prevented by his many 
duties from attending his regular midweek meet- 


Prominent Friends. 275 


ing on Twelfth street, he would be found the 
next day in the Arch street meeting-house. 

Just before his death he was made Associate 
Justice of the Court of Common Pleas. His un- 
remitting attention to his duties brought on an 
attack of disease which ended in his death in 
1836. 


Tuomas P. Cops was born in Lancaster county 
in 1768. He served his apprenticeship to busi- 
ness in Philadelphia, and was soon in partner- 
ship with his employer. His whole business life 
depended on good judgment and foresight, and 
was never speculative nor adventurous. Some- 
times he took great risks, but the consequences 
of failure were fully foreseen and provided for. 
Thus, when the war of 1812 broke out he had a 
vessel at sea. The insurance company asked ex- 
travagant rates, and, carefully assuring himself 
of his ability to stand a total loss, he accepted the 
hazard. Fortune proved propitious, and the ves- 
sel came safely into port, to his great profit. 
He was a great merchant; Philadelphia has per- 
haps never had a greater; but he did not allow 
his large business to withhold his energies from 
philanthropic work or intellectual improvement. 
In yellow fever times, which brought out the 


276 Quakers in the Revolution. 


best in the men of those days, he did not spare 
himself, and was attacked by the disease. 

In 1807 he was sent to the Legislature as a 
representative of conservatism and the existing 
constitution against the apprehended attacks of 
the Democrats. He had previously served the 
city in the Councils, and had been conspicuous 
as}a member of the committee for introducing 

re water;—a measure which, with their peren- 
nial perversity towards measures of reform, the 
Philadelphians bitterly attacked. It was his 
strenuous advocacy which effected the purchase 
of Lemon Hill, and so established the great Fair- 
mount Park for the double purpose of providing 
recreation grounds and preventing the pollution 
of the Schuylkill. His great services and the 
general confidence felt in him induced the offer, 
under circumstances which would have insured 
success, of a position in the national House of 
Representatives. He, however, resolutely de- 
clined all political honors, and restricted his at- 
tention to his great business and the claims of the 
various institutions with which he was connected. 

Later in life, when his affairs were more 
largely in the hands of his sons, he allowed him- 
self to accept an election to the Convention of 
1837, which amended the Constitution of the 


Prominent Friends. QtT 


State. His services were of great value, and his 
speeches, not numerous or long, were simple and 
sensible. 

His business developed on his hands. In 1821 
was established the packet line to Liverpool, 
which was, before the introduction of steam, the 
principal Philadelphia shipping enterprise. To 
him also was largely due the construction of the 
Chesapeake and Delaware Canal; and the Penn- 
sylvania Railroad was made certain at a critical 
time by the promptness and efficiency with 
which he as chairman of a town meeting took up 
its cause. Stephen Girard, his rival in business 
and friend, selected him as Trustee of his great 
estate, and the Select Council made him a Direc- 
tor of Girard College. He was one of the found- 
ers and afterwards on the first board of manage- 
ment of Haverford School. The Board of Trade 
and the Mercantile Library were both largely his 
creation, and he was President of both. His ser- 
vices and his generous donations were extended 
to almost every useful institution of Philadel- 
phia. 

As a Friend he enjoyed the esteem and confi- 
dence of his fellow-members, and in all his 
varied enterprises the Quaker badges were never 
omitted. He lived to be eighty-six years old. 


278 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Jostan Wuitr.—Another of the great mer- 
chants of Philadelphia was Josiah White. When 
he came as a boy from his home in Mt. Holly he 
formed the intention of securing $40,000 by the 
time he was thirty, and then retiring to easy life 
in a country place. He accomplished his object 
with two years to spare, and after a time he 
bought a property at the Falls of Schuylkill, em- 
bracing land on both sides and the water rights 
between. 

This was fatal to his dreams of peaceful re- 
tirement. He was an ingenious man, and could 
not see this water-power going to waste. He 
dammed the river (the first time it had been 
done), and built a wire mill and a nail mill, 
which were not very successful for want of suit- 
able tools and machinery. Later he devised the 
system since adopted of pumping water from a 
dam at Fairmount. A biographer, speaking of 
this conception and execution, says, “ I know of 
no man to whom the citizens of Philadelphia are 
so much indebted as they are to Josiah White.” 

He had also another claim to the thanks of 
Philadelphians. He taught them how to use an- 
thracite coal. It was in his furnace at the Falls 
of the Schuylkill that iron was first melted by 
anthracite. He was so convinced of its utility 


Prominent Friends. 279 


not only for manufacturing but also for domestic 
purposes, that he made several journeys to the 
wilderness where Mauch Chunk now stands, and 
organized two companies, afterwards united into 
one, The Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company. 
The Lehigh was only a mountain torrent. He 
built locks and walls, smoothed the bottom, con- 
structed storage reservoirs, personally superin- 
tending all the work. He built the Switchback 
road for bringing his coal to the river, and 
bought a great stretch of coal fields at Summit 
Hill. But perhaps greater than the mechanical 
and financial difficulties he solved was the diffi- 
culty of convincing skeptical Philadelphians that 
coal was fit to burn. The first year—1820— 
three hundred and sixty-five tons were brought 
down the tamed Lehigh, and this was more than 
could be sold in the city. But by the aid of 
grates kept burning in public places, and ocular 
demonstrations in furnaces, skepticism generally 
vanished. The whole movement was as bold and 
successful a legitimate mercantile venture as the 
state ever saw. The courageous and energetic 
manager reaped his financial reward, and, what 
he valued more, saw the vast benefit of his ex- 
periment to the trade and comfort of his city. 


280 Quakers in the Revolution. 


Josiah White lived to be nearly seventy years 
old, and died in 1850. He bequeathed funds to 
found two manual-labor schools in Indiana and 
Iowa, which still exist. 


In the professions, the choice of Friends one 
hundred years ago was quite limited. The min- 
istry was not open to them. Law was looked 
upon with suspicions growing into positive ob- 
jections. We have seen how Nicholas Waln 
gave up a promising prospect as advocate when 
he dedicated himself to a strictly Friendly life. 
In time Quaker lawyers became almost as much 
of a rarity as professional Quaker preachers. 
There were, however, a number in Revolution- 
ary times. One of them is mentioned in John 
Adams’s Diary. 


“September 17th, 1774. Dined with Miers 
Fisher, a young Quaker and a lawyer. We saw 
his library, which is clever. But this plain 
Friend, with his plain though pretty wife, with 
her thees and her thous, had provided us a most 
costly entertainment.” 


Miers Fisher afterward became a member of 
City Councils and of the State Legislature, and 
director of several prominent financial institu- 


Prominent Friends. 281 


tions, retaining always, however, his love of the 
law and his membership at the bar. 

The Quaker lawyers of the Revolution had a 
worthy successor in Ex K. Price. He was born 
in Chester county, and spent his early business 
life in the commercial house of Thomas P. Cope 
and the law office of John Sergeant. No abler 
real estate lawyer ever lived in Philadelphia. 
His signature to a brief of title was considered 
a perfect assurance. In 1851 he was sent to the 
State Senate on an independent ticket, whose es- 
pecial object was to secure the consolidation of 
the City of Philadelphia with the outlying 
boroughs. The act which secured this was 
drafted by him, and a beautiful piece of legisla- 
tion it was. In civic affairs he was interested 
and helpful, and Fairmount Park contains many 
a testimonial to his love of trees and plants. He 
died in 1884, in his eighty-eighth year. 


But practically it may be said that the only 
profession open to a Friend in thorough har- 
mony with his meeting was that of medicine, 
and the Quaker doctors of Philadelphia have 
constituted a distinguished body. 

There was John Jones, the physician of Wash- 
ington and Franklin; Thomas Chalkley James, 


282 Quakers in the Revolution. 


who, after a course at Edinburgh, became pro- 
fessor in the University of Pennsylvania and 
author of valuable papers; Samuel Powel Grif- 
fitts, who, with Dr. Caspar Wistar, restrained 
from fighting in the battle of Germantown by 
his principles, found useful employment in the 
care of the wounded, who traveled much in 
study in Europe, and who also held a professor- 
ship in the first medical school of America; Jos- 
eph Parrish, a great surgeon; Samuel Emlen, 
who gained his knowledge in the hospitals of 
Paris, where the victims of the Napoleonic wars 
were treated; Joseph Hartshorne, who, with his 
son, has made the name memorable in medicine; 
Samuel George Morton, physician and geologist, 
also the ancestor of a line of distinguished prac- 
titioners; George B. Wood, writer of authori- 
tative treatises on medicine, and honored pro- 
fessor in the University of Pennsylvania; 
Thomas S. Kirkbride, the American authority 
on the treatment of the insane;—these and 
others maintained a succession of Quaker doc- 
tors of highest repute, from the time of the Rey- 
olution downwards. 

If, however, we were to take one as a repre- 
sentative it should be Caspar Wistar. He was 
born in 1761, and obtained, in 1782, from the 


Prominent Friends. 983 


University of Pennsylvania, as the custom of 
those days was, the degree of Bachelor of Medi- 
cine. Then for four years he studied faithfully 
at London and Edinburgh, and received his 
Doctor’s degree at the latter institution. His 
reputation preceded him to America, and almost 
immediately on his return he became professor 
in one of the two rival medical schools into which 
the feuds of the Revolution had unfortunately 
divided the institution which is now the Univer- 
sity. As Professor of Anatomy he was a model 
lecturer; always clear, sometimes eloquent. As 
was the case with a large number of the Friends 
whose names have been mentioned, he received 
his early education in the Friends’ “ Public 
Schools.” This he afterwards improved by pri- 
vate study of the most varied character. His re- 
markable literary and classical culture and his 
abundant knowledge threw around his chosen 
profession a most interesting glow of refinement 
and wealth of illustration. In social conversa- 
tion he was equally attractive, and once a week 
he threw open his house for meetings of the 
most learned Philadelphians to discuss subjects 
of interest, scientific or literary. These “ Wistar 
Parties” were continued after his death. 

His religion was unostentatious. He always 


284 Quakers in the Revolution. 


carried with him a Bible when he traveled. He 
was regular at meeting whenever the condition - 
of his patients permitted, and desired that his 
family should always attend. His goodness 
dwelt about him, and was its own evi 
dence. He was President of the Abolition So- 
ciety, and took an active part in many philan- 
thropic movements. While refusing public 
office, his was an influential service in all meas- 
ures affecting the public good. He died in 1818. 


It was not, however, in Philadelphia alone 
that Friends reached prominence. Perhaps in 
the old Quaker district of Chester and Delaware 
counties, the original Chester county of Penn- 
sylvania, settled almost exclusively by them, 
they have had equally conspicuous influence. 
Friends have represented the district in the na- — 
tional House of Representatives for about forty 
years. Charles Humphreys, member of the Con- 
tinental Congress, was a Friend. Richard 
Thomas, a birthright Friend, was a Representa- 
tive from 1794 to 1800. John M. Broomall, 
‘Washington Townsend, Smedley Darlington and 
Thomas 8S. Butler have claimed allegiance to 
Friends. Isaac Darlington, a representative 
and county Judge from 1821 to 1839, was a 


Prominent Friends. 285 


birthright Friend. William Butler has had an 
honorable career as county Judge from 1861 to 
1879, and United States Judge in Philadelphia 
from 1879 to 1898. Dr. William Darlington, 
Member of Congress, perhaps the first botanist 
of his day in America, and a man of varied at- 
tainments, lost his right among Friends for par- 
ticipation in warlike operations in early life. 
Dr. George Smith was born in Delaware county 
in 1804. He studied medicine but practiced 
but a few years. He was State Senator from 
1832 to 1836, and during his term performed 
the valuable service, as chairman of the Educa- 
tion Committee, of securing the passage of the 
law for free education. As superintendent of 
schools in his county he elaborated and defended 
the system against much opposition, some of 
which came from Friends. He was also Asso- 
ciate Judge of the County Court, and founder 
and President of the Delaware County Institute 
of Science, and contributor to it of papers and 
specimens. His “ History of Delaware County ” 
has never been surpassed as a local history. He 
was an interested Friend and a public-spirited 
citizen. 


The anti-slavery cause around Philadelphia 


286 Quakers in the Revolution. 


during the first half of the nineteenth century 
was largely sustained by Friends. Their tradi- 
tions drove them to its support. Many of them 
were fearful of the lengths to which the extreme 
abolitionists would go, and their disapproval of 
war, quite as pronounced as their disapproval of 
slavery, held them back from vigorous support 
of radical measures. There were advanced 
members and moderates, the latter probably in 
a considerable majority, but there were no pro- 
slavery Quakers. They formed the backbone of 
the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, of which 
Franklin was the first president. They keenly 
watched the action of the Pennsylvania Senators 
and Representatives in Congress, and saw that 
they took honorable and advanced ground on the 
subject. It was a Quaker petition, presented by 
a Quaker born Senator, Jonathan Roberts, that 
in 1817 ewoke the country to the evils of the 
remnants of slave trade, and opened a fierce de- 
bate in Congress, It was the Quaker in Benjamin 
Lundy which made him such a vehement cham- 
pion of the cause and which brought William 
Lloyd Garrison to its support. It was Evan 
Lewis, a Friend, who started the movement 
which resulted in the first national anti-slavery 
convention, in 1833, in Philadelphia; and in that 


Prominent Friends. 287 


convention the chairman was a Friend, and so 
were a large, perhaps a controlling, number of 
the delegates. To the declaration issued by the 
convention, John G. Whittier placed his name. 
It was the beginning of his long struggle for lib- 
erty, the most tragic portion of which was in the 
Quaker City. He wrote the poem dedicating 
Pennsylvania Hall to free discussion, and he pub- 
lished the Pennsylvania Freeman, which he con- 
ducted with so much vigor and sincerity that he 
was mobbed, and his plant ruined,—treatment 
which he bore with unflinching though quiet 
courage. His confidence in Pennsylvania 
Friends is shown by his lines of encouragement 
to Governor Ritner: 
‘No, Ritner, her Friends at thy warning shall stand 
Erect for the truth like their ancestral band.’ 

It was Caln Quarterly Meeting which in 1836 
presented, through James Buchanan, to the 
United States Senate, a memorial praying 
Congress to enact liberty. The memorial, 
after fierce opposition from John C. Cal- 
houn, was received by a vote of thirty- 
five to ten, and the prayer of the peti- 
tioners rejected with only six negative votes. 
It was the Friendly influence which made south- 


288 Quakers in the Revolution. 


eastern Pennsylvania such a popular route of the 
“Underground Railroad,” and opened Quaker 
homes to house and feed fugitives in deference 
to a “higher law” than Congressional enact- 
ments. 

In the long list of Friends who were active in 
this work we can only mention two as repre- 
sentatives. 


Tuomas Surprey was a Philadelphia mer- 
chant. He was educated in Westtown School, 
and in 1817, at the age of thirty-three, he joined 
the ranks of the “ Pennsylvania Society for Pro- 
moting the Abolition of Slavery.” He was a 
careful student of the rights and interests of 
negroes, and became an authority on all legal 
and social questions involved. He was the un- 
paid advocate of the colored race and individual, 
and he served their cause as faithfully as ever a 
subsidized lawyer attended to the interests of 
wealthy clients. In times of mob violence, which 
unhappily were frequent in Philadelphia, his 
buildings were negro asylums; and his ready re- 
sources and personal courage avoided serious con- 
flicts. In court proceedings affecting slaves or 
free negroes he was almost invariably present as 
adviser, and while never resisting legal process 


Prominent Friends. 289 


he took advantage of every weakness and error 
in his opponent’s position, and as the agent of 
the Abolition Society secured the freedom and 
the rights of many a colored person. The energy, 
activity and self-denial involved in these cases, 
the judicial decisions and precedents secured by 
his intelligence and careful study, and the warm- 
hearted sympathy which made him personally 
trusted by thousands of an oppressed race, place 
his services to the cause of freedom in the highest 
rank. Before his death he became President of 
the “ Pennsylvania Society.” 


THomas Garrett.—Of a somewhat different 
character but not less important were the services 
of Thomas Garrett. He was a Philadelphian, born 
in 1783, who had moved to Wilmington, Dela- 
ware, and engaged in a lucrative business. At 
the age of twenty-four the kidnapping of a col- 
ored woman from his father’s house started him 
on his great work. Though living in a slave 
state, and surrounded by bitter opponents, he 
never flinched for half a century; and in this 
time assisted three thousand colored people to 
escape from slavery. He was the great organizer 
and manager of the “Underground Railroad ” 
for his section, and while not directly inciting 


290 Quakers in the Revolution. 


slaves to escape, saw that they were protected 
and forwarded when fugitives. In 1848, under 
the Fugitive Slave Law, he was prosecuted four 
times on the charge of abducting two slave chil- 
dren, and was heavily fined. The auction sale 
of his property cleared away everything he pos- 
sessed, and left him penniless at sixty. The 
auctioneer expressing a hope when the last piece 
was struck off that he would now give up his 
efforts for freedom, he replied, “Friend, I 
haven’t a dollar in the world, but if thee knows 
a fugitive who needs a breakfast, send him to 
me,”—an answer which deserves record among 
the noble utterances of history. Good friends 
supplied him with funds to resume business, and 
he again acquired a competence. He lived to 
see slavery abolished, and died in 1871. At his 
own request his body was borne to the grave by 
colored men of Wilmington. 


It is perhaps no impeachment of the patriot- 
ism or ability of Friends that they have not been 
prominent in political matters since the Civil 
War. The conditions which have recently pre- 
vailed in Pennsylvania have been such that a 
man of integrity, self-respect, and scrupulous 
regard for means used, could hardly secure or re- 
tain high public office. Other qualities besides 


Prominent Friends. 291 


conspicuous fitness are demanded, and it is not 
likely that men of the character of George Lo- 
gan and Robert Waln could have been selected 
by the majority party as candidates for office. 

The energies of Friends, so far as they have 
been occupied with public matters, have been 
directed towards non-partisan and philanthropic 
efforts. In these they have had, in proportion to 
their numbers, a prominent place. Two names 
only need to be mentioned. 


Putte C. Garrerr was in 1883 made Chair- 
man of the Board of Public Charities of Penn- 
sylvania. This, which also involved the national 
appointment of Commissioner of Immigration of 
the Port of Philadelphia, he held for five years. 
During the administration of President Benja- 
min Harrison he was made a member of the 
United States Board of Indian Commissioners, 
a position since held (1900). Perhaps his 
most conspicuous local service was the Chairman- 
ship of the Committee of One Hundred, a body 
formed in the interests of honest politics. This 
body was created in 1880, and for three years 
was influential in securing the election of its can- 
didates from Mayor down, much to the advan- 
tage and credit of the city. He has also been 


292 Quakers in the Revolution. 


President of the National Conference of Chari- 
ties and Correction, and of several of the sessions 
of the Lake Mohonk Indian Conferences. 

He graduated at Haverford College in 1851, 
has been Manager since 1862, and is the editor 
of a large History of the College. He was-also 
an original Trustee of Bryn Mawr College, and 
is now President of the Board. 


Josoua L. Batty was educated at Friends’ 
schools, and early showed the philanthropic ten- 
dencies which have been the motive power of his 
life. From boyhood his interest in anti-slavery 
movements showed itself in various practical 
ways; but his work has been most closely iden- 
tified with the Temperance cause. In 1874 he 
established coffee-houses as counter-attractions to 
the saloons, a signally successful enterprise. 
For thirty years he has been Manager, and for 
five years President, of the National Temper- 
ance Society. “The Philadelphia Society for 
the Employment and Instruction of the Poor,” 
“The Society for Organizing Charity,” and 
“The Philadelphia Fountain Society,” have 
prospered under his presidency. 

In various civic affairs he has been active. He 
was an original member of “ The Committee of 


Prominent Friends. 293 


One Hundred” and of “ The Citizens’ Munici- 
pal Association,” and is Vice-President of “The 
Law and Order Society.” In all enterprises for 
raising relief funds his services have been valu- 
able. 

In recent years he has been working in the 
Cause of Peace and International Arbitration, 
and for a number of years has been Treasurer of 
the Mohonk Arbitration Conference. 


INDEX. 


Adams; John, Diary, of, quoted) ~)...-)./).0=. «sess sets II., 280 
Address of Quarterly Meeting ...L., 231 et seq., 234 et seq. 
Arnold:) Benediet, (isk! lnasteemsmeniee ceiole cece eens II., 149 
‘Ashbridge, George ject ieieis nel che Restore aie als yeh eee me 264 
Assembly .........++ L., 56, 62, 64, 72, 140, 150, 187, 197, 
200 et seq., 213, 244 
Attorney-General vetoes bills ..................00000- Teg 
Barly. po Ostparila:tehecsenaertre Js leidislelacs Wigvarste cislalee ata II., 292 
Baneroft’s: History, Us) So oul wscintisincice rele eee I., 63, 67 
Barclay, \ Dawid) yon rer rosie cisiejetstetetesaetecia cele ere II., 88, 110 
Biddle; ‘Orwen isa) soaerslbin elarereleloveisleteye esteeiooleele ee eee IT., 208 
Blackywelle Sota ees cis ree mainiatoiais eloieialatoia eet aeneee I., 68, 78 
Braddock yavtaeas wie eivcets an icyaoentee ones aretteae Die 213, 214 
Brandywine; Battleiony i i= <teyjelsiastsl=\e)els mis pleleiele einen Tk: 146 
Brissot, J. P., ‘‘ Nouveau Voyage dans les Etats- 
munis,” ete:,) (quoted! ':./-..ce1s ses e'ws)s esac eaten IU, 2533 
Broomall, John Me csi. ites cept elena IT., 284 
Bryan, George ‘fail sysyetaieia (aiale lols lalans diata’e evayecea mele cele eee i; 233 
Burlington SLU atalatsl velit aie /alanelshevelnyats etusiaeis Ite eioletete ster I., 22, 224 
Butler: Thomas $8. j.))./2)./jeidjnleslosyes le ote asec See Gis 284 
Butler, Walliams on er eer Ale eee IL, 285 
Campaigns About Philadelphia ..................... II., 145 
Capital (Punishment (0). /2/./ sles se nsiei oo cae caieee eee ee I., 148 
Carlisle; vAlbralbam) eeu ers ejaeals winlelein {aieisighelalevs Sparen II., 192 
Carpentery Samuel iis Sein slilsmlcm eel reece e ene I., 84, 193 
Catholics i ieee isi un Uste cintsinaisis paleo eiee eee ees I., 126 
Charity: Qualker so cose eelel aoe een eae I., 34 
Charter oh G70L i. 180) 0 NN Saris L., 64, 105, 120; IL, 1 
Coates; ‘Samuel... sone eee eee eater eects II., 269 et seq. 
Cole; Sostalyy |s:s..)2)..0c:2 Ale dielierejeisislcrcias ie lewis esse I., 130 
Conestoga, Indians) 22 y25seeeiecas seiniesneemelsiiscee eee Feiss 42 
Congress, Debate on Slavery in............ II., 237, 244, "947 
Conseiencedin oc cinn) evinenis ake hem ose aeticenean I., 117, 261 
Contest of Assembly With Proprietors ....... Ih 18, 64, 97 
Continental Congress, Hirst ..).....02.2--2-2e+>e0' TI., 104 
Conventicle (AGE ee awacienersmeaiones em cece Pas) |) 


Index. 295 


Cope Mhomasy bri. ca rises vareieciiaeaciasteele II., 275 et seq. 
CSET 1 RD NO AINE A L., 60-62, 71, 140, 197 
Dalim eons liseaey <ys05)<ts stags speicraretcveisictase totronete seek oe dota II., 284 
Darlingtonas Smedley ey scctercisiclressivnie waiiopsietsleinieis «ic svetete IL., 284 
Darlin tOnay Urs WV LLIN ce preter re evekalarnctsigiate mis sie sieie\arsys II., 285 
ID ese) 014) ALA Rae See SE Mera: Cm AARC CS ol Onialay ea II., 210 
Sram yeaa erie ee crcleralsyurelahite leyeuveiaremarsvatste mon aiateteratane alee II., 14 
MICkAM SOM OMIM avert wa men seieregcluceineietatateiaeeters II., 94, "105 
Discipline Qoalkerdes ere erientlacievesecist eects 1 22 et seq. 
Vis Oya SHB ier-)s)efois/aiescteisiersioisicis i aioe weioys elsiercleotesjeeterstente It, IB} 
Disputes Among Quakers ...........-..20c0eees I., 23 et seq. 
Hidueation Ws Quakenvacajor ces dacs cc acas meets I., 35 et seq. 
Imire Din Seiseta ly eq AeEcsAeMeece anata an econo cede II., 282 
Pp IScOpaliariay eee etme atelese ee cheers ea eet I., 89, 134, 142 
nausea Cadwalader tui stentselerenielaeictepeterepne oles clea I A 
IDEA Lola aH eee ARM AM ae ea ata Deal aC T., 90, 94 
Fisher, WMI Gries el stein aN Ue aba a tee ea ton Weal Le RE IE IL ., 280 
Fletcher, Colonel re eee asta sas otal demote I., 69, 78, 193 
EMO wer) sHIMOCH Mic eicen siereterare ara clearer ensks esc rsne ecto siers lar eeeue ale rele ihe 37 
IOUS arte eeya ov sratete Sieh etetaia' sisters clove sislaretos tic mapa mie she Te, 217, "245 
Fothergill, Dr. John ........ 20a 22850250) SO: 
83, 86, 110, 113, 118, 122 
OGMeR gia el pete lercie svetstalciccle necverseciela svete I., 243 et seq. 
Hox Georg ents aitcs sjacieveles sare teseinrseveal sets I, 9, 10; 130, 153 
Hrames)ion Government.) \-ci-iesiniisiciene eect ciets T., 48, 62, 64 
Franklin, Benjamin ............ T., 105, 110, 211, 230 ; 
IL., 15, 44, 54, 73, 84, 110 
Bixee! | COVEN Sree eee a CN MS OR EU Ne a 207 
Friendly Association ................ IU PMO ER Pl st) 
Hundamrental) Constitutions) .)-\-\-//\elsseisterle ces «ciel I., 58 
HE careh ys CM ARIVTTVI Velo ovat srattelevetate/ sie lclatalolale orelevstaialetel et etch Ie sy 
GallatinayiAlbert ese shies eu Seimei ape Muu a easels II., 247 
Garretts iPr © iiversccc ine okie crate tes wteleiel ae etareiniels eyelets II., 291 
Garrett Mb oma sh cece sunss cernslaaivioreaceeiiacies caer: II., 289 
Germans see pehelveteheratee Sinker cies talctatene(adane ayesteal Stele oes ey LOZ Th 2 
Germantowns) Bacble sObietssiiscreieie se stctelnietsvernie steiserese cts ae 147 
Gilpin, Thomas ABE Saye peaiobelal sere lai ole Sieeetsiatatataiee etcrete G2 
Godkins) Goverwor vases picts cp telate slate sheies I., 94, 197, 199 
Government Of Een Sylvanas vetpane ckdelsiniclemaicrseticts Iisa 
Government, Quaker Relation to ....I., 15, 134, 202, 


208, 241, 258 
Governors MishoryDeputyniis.secccceeccnce esses I., 70 


296 History of Quaker Government. 


Griffitts, Dr. Samuel Powel ...........+.ss.sseeee0- II., 282 
Griscom,) Bilizabeth 26206 ./ceodnes acest Aneuinee ee II., 210 
Hamilton; Andrew? «04.50.2255 mss oss seh eine eee I., 88 
Hamilton, Jameg .6..3)0. clu aeesses ship helsie eae II., 16 
Hartshorn, Dr, \ Joseph) seve ees) seb e hanes eee TS 282 
Hat Honor BGS lagi, S016 6 0b GN ajglert cele 6,6 6.0 biel bye OST tate ip 12 
Hayes, Jonathan) 2... 65.6564 06 e.ss6 ont ns bina ee eee i "49 
Hierarchiy, | NO: isi sates olvorstoreseretel teteyettetch-te Gee re it 40 
Humiphreys, ‘Charles si. i.2:éssc0 00 uid 20 en gee eee 1 Ire "984 
Eunt.) Johny tse ust tock. se tecsssiees sews whee T., 254 ; Hs 162 
Indian Conference ) 3 42 sa/ssiaiaiias 255 05303 oe Ree z, 173 
Dra dna) Dra des 155-5 coh) toh yah eyaiovelolet oyohelete felons ra totale 5, 155 
Indian: Treaties, \..45 oy teajeae ole arasteteys sre ena II., 28, 31 
Indian War siaiscisaacecascccccescagtsabea eee II., 24 
Urndianss eee cee cmbeis le wsletsicleie cle e e/otelemln Helse esc. I., 152 
James, Dr: Thomas Chalkley ...5.5.253.+454..seeeee IT., 281 
Jersey, Purchase Of: 1.211225 0(o (alle »elete sins = eee E., 130 
TONES) Drs, VOM ays coreya's elarerorais a,sleyalateials soles ede Cee iy 281 
Jury | Service |.) sds sae al chnss nevelersciee cle +s aa eee i 132 
Keith,, (George! vic scesisdindenesddaaces ondadedseseeee I., 79-81 
Keith, ‘Governor 5,08 adie 200s te inielalelale oh aajelate aaa jae 149) 
Karkbride, Dr Ehomas S222 -4.-- eres II., 282 
Bam Ga ster! iia s jako Wei tcdie tvtaelassiovel et steletotete See ea en II., 43 
Mise Wes) ES VeuTa) fertole be hors lotsteya es Fobareieisfareys ato eee ita o\nie/=, eee II., 286 
Giberty; (Religious: saciasesssasieae soi sks see aeeeeer Te, LG 
Ibloyd,) David! since saves ses asec T., 80, 85, 87, 92, 197, 200 
Roya), Wisomas? sais: selec cies ste'slelevers & seeyerepenels I., 35, 68, 69, 80 
LOCKE, ¢ POH: | vrcpetale wlohe siatelelelvieieto'elet cio) ciate chelate le en I., 63 
Boe, (THOMA: Fe Fost idee eaves elaiewioietelsieieicle dug elie ee Tes 
Dogan} Dry George: 21. cjistecs!s!s(ociststenres sissies II., 259 et seq. 
Logan, James ............ I., 35, 49, 70, 85, 91, 170, 185, 

225, 2293 Wiese 
Boogams) Walia) .)</.(.rerchciciniets otalovesateisiats) level iereieiere II., 10, 37, 93 
Eundy,) Benjamin. «...).:2...0%. 005s cee ee eeeeeeee hie 286 
Magna @Ghartay (2)/...0cis./ceitn ie oteiataci her eiater tclstect tele eto Ue. 52, 128 
Markham: Walliam asclsesaa-sesoqcieemicee ae I., 69, 78, 80, 159 
Marshall, Humphrey ...................0eee TL, 263 et seq. 
Masson’s Life of Milton .............. 1s) 0d Sie eee Rae L., 17 
McKean, Chief Justice .....5....s0ccseeseedencenens II., 159 
Meeting for Sufferings ...... II., 57, 59, 69, 77, 107, 123, 195 
Meeting, iouses' i soft siteiyh stot bererers ieee etc roeten a eieee II., 181 


Mifflin Thomas) 4350): /ssitebieleljon shee oescmcacioee II., 105, 135 


Index. 297 


ATTSH Ine VVARIIOY ¥-! 5 5.3.5'a:5 ls/ssainlei sieve sy oteisitheraate TI., 244, 255 et seq. 
Military) pe AGLEES o-oo Sek Hessen OW ee See dems 915 cde I., 183 
Wes lite Li WaPo ss vss rece vice oes te sO cee cram ee Cee. ie I., 216 
MMS INGANIGY Soo cs coe s ces va aedleve cease etinebaietisa ie ce gly Al 
MiiutesvOr Connell :\. ic ieee case vavscateovec cs cr ce II., 25 
Minutes of Meetings....I., 23-28, 34, 35, 44, 46, 144-146, 
231, 233, 243, 256, 261, 262 
Moraliiy.) Quaker ec oe:eicccsise cee ce ceeeree.o8 1., 27 et seq. 
MM Gravanns, joss sass toe cee sc cec ue eset beh hetke abes IL., 345 
Worris, Governor cii.2 2552 oscaacss ste baeeawes ccs oe 28k I., 110 
Morton, Dr: Samuel George’... 2.1085 .5ik seks ec estes ini 282 
Won porbataons Sos ves. cn oe cease eee ae ekieeeace olceths JII., 76 
INGIEIss: SAAC) p205s ose esa a osk Sees saWe hon seedsee cess L., 91 
Nomis, sade (2d ee ceeaeiacscscencscebessoueek tess iis 
Oaths. Fee ees tex csscaceu sce I., 2, 14, 183, 1386 et seq. 
PAMET, MONEY, pseie -cissionere ls Coutsace eee ee ee awe stem I., 103 
Ramiro JOSEDN osis vices veces Ser crack est eap ees II., 282 
Barter) 1m UO = fassizneietsiaiess sis s.sieveisizine I., 85; in 1740, I., 101 
Paxton Demands 22. ....c065 063 tsescctesnslcteaesccas Il., 47 
Paxton) RIC’ sadccsss jess ewscce ss nasaee sco seeoownbors Il., 42 
Pemberton, Israel ......... I., 180, 261; IT., 12, 26, 38, 48, 70 
Pemberton, James....I., 110, ‘249, ‘254, 269 : a5 13, 34, 
48, 64, 66, 89, 103, 107, 120, 213 
Pemberton, Bohn 5s)cisej<j-i05 ci, se aaah ht ob seen. 8 266 ; IL, 13 
Remncton: Pdward: a: 2secccseh vee cecchocke scaeoccas II, 50 
Rene AGHIN Go. ce lonsiccisaniice ook ee eiecee een II., 20, 44, 59, 66 
Penn, PRTC ATO ei sper sais arene ea ees eee aie ne oe oa cae ee ain EEO 
erin UNOMAS f200.5)5,<0c/ecceicieiaalot a cle bee's Pa il, 2. ; i, 10 
enres Walliamg fos .ccccce cess. «steed ei eue ac ce I., 3, 4, 42 
SBD y ALE feis.5) i stoiers cia. sjoid siaisinie sition deve siekmcies § I., 7 et seq. 
Constitutions ........ I., 47, 51, 53, 56 et seq., 63 et seq. 
SVaS1 US) PASTVCT IG |< 15. cjacid ame leicisis ss mjeiaie Seem bale sv gees L., 67 
Mbebter Of UPL oocictm crc ass e sioisies2e eis ps iciere ee I., 96 et seq. 
On Religious Liberty .................. I., 119, 120, 128 
Purchase of New Jersey .........s.-eeeeeeeeeeee a Kem | 
Advises Judges to Resist ............--2--eeeeeee I., 139 
Wires to inthans \sccs.wstaded oe oe ivecign acca ces Te; 153 
OnoWar i adoucecnse cos setedcal atcsssemeeeeeese ad I., 184 
Dietiots Nations ys <1 5 5deo coe oc coe ces Bena tie ee L., 185 
Wnion of Colonies). 2..<.052 52.0: akeessvess ot snl L., 186 
Wommmends Moree so a)s.s0sisj0co nian cele nea maeiatet e)s.eie 8 L., 188 


Before Committee of Trade .................-.4-- I., 191 


298 History of Quaker Government. 


Penn) Walliamy STs isieeteis\sice ie ciel aielee cies ee eee I., 90 
Persecution, of ‘Quakers |. .\.\. 5s. 20 + sleeve cies sleleele T1619) 
Petibion bo) Weg 5. <2 /-\Hetecwloyayeieioieleveva sence ete eae L.; 219 
 PHiTOpOlBesH® s/he) sinssjasale sisveisioeteinisralnlels micielele ee eee I., 54 
Position of Friends in the War............ II., 130, 175, 204 
Preparing’ for the Revolution <2 -\-\.0 +/+ =n eee J FW 7 (5 
Presbyterians \2 3 60.5) sls cisa\s e's eisinlels'ove blelejeletalelauetetae eee IL, 4 
Price, BAK) Qs k vaiaeek oes ladies cee iif 981 
Principles: of ‘Government, ): <\:):./.'.. ./-. = «cence 1 1 
Proprietary Instructions) \.\).!.5-\:\-1010)e +cat Ie 106 
Purchase of Indian Lands ............. I., 157, 158, 162, 176 
Urbana ood) jess hs ein a iaderale ele lalgis cdots ereie oreo ae eee Haas Hf 
Quaker Control of lesone o aioyeie ib) oleate oleae tee ee Te 75 
Quaker Delinquents ................20- te. /0e ele i RRR IL., 49 
Quaker Diserpliner hoes ase dee ste aloes I., 22 et seq. 
Quaker Doctrine yess seis s elesielsel seo see eee I., 9 et seq. 
Quaker-Bducationw ance sneauscosccenitee eee I., 35 et seq. 
Quaker/\Morality (02). 0 ose hes ue mee cetaceans I., 27 et seq. 
Quaker Organization): \..\5).j.:). «seis oe eee 1. 2 ase 
Quaker Party. se teicr cies reecacencntne hee T., 265); 0y 
Quaker ‘Persecution. }.) 0) )))i..2.o)acleleleic/orore te eee I., 16, 19 
Quaker Remonstrance to Assembly ................-- Ly 207 
Quaker (Suffering (fo. cin siahwenelsi a cree aeee eae MM eat ly Pe brie 
Quakers, No Special Favors ................-- I., 129 et seq. 
Quakers, Number in Pennsylvania ...............-.+ I., 74 
Quarny,;))|Colomel a2) yee ficken. Wa ee L790 
Reeds Jioseplay yeast cteesicntialois gape shantlesle en eae IL., 200, 233 
Representation in Assembly .............-2-.eeeeeeeee Ty 83 
Resignation /of Quakers’: < 5/2)... sje: \eiserels sree Ee, 220222: 
Revere; (Paull (67. <\oc)- sie e1e sie sels ve le ele aielicjole eis aces II., 105 
Roberts; Tol h 22) sais Seatereeiesse cio lc ceet eee IT., 193 
Roberts} Jonathan ke nesses eee IL., 266 et seq., 286 
Robertss\ Moses 5 s.ic hissed ese aie ee ee IL., 191 
Rum, Sale of to the Indians .................. I., 164 et seq. 
School, William Penn Charter)... .)2/-))--e eee da Yi 
Scoteh Trish yrs scab alae seltelaicacie ameloseal See II., 9 
Shepherd’s History of Proprietary Government...I.,75, 134 
Shipleys|) Thomas) ice) isle sielselarcieisiocie sie aoe eee II., 288 
Shippen,” Hidiwardy oo ssielwewie ealeeeeieieide sae eee ena 1 70 
Shoemaker, Benjamin). :)0)-piosciweeee teen eee eee Te 37 
Sidney, Algernon serie tans leh sa'apel eta uel Sve rack ofele pee Feral lesilay/ 


Simeocdk:) Soh; Hernia ee pave Santen cdee eee aaa i192 


Index. 299 


MAVO@E WE anise nowasss oes sleds ala's I., 31 et seq.; IT., 137, 224 
SUIFEL MMP NES GEOR LO) orcic\si/sic)<icjai's smisssla cistele Slalsmies ic).v0'e TI., 285 
Sorcery Ee eae cate wa Pai erainis sie aw sie cin ree cise aes we 3/0 oem ie 40 
Southeby, William Bsa Nelacieaiaielen Saleen nnadiseinie cece. cic dH es "939 
Spanktown Yearly Meeting .................0.sce00- ried 155 
Soeur AGHA aocCoce AU BNOE: COSEACHCCE teaser aenne Il., 76 
SiieEIN EA Cte CON ETERS <(2!-/ele'= <5 ela eisisare cols aicisicie’e aie © 1s II., 81, 98 
Taxation of Proprietary Estates ............ ES 108); BE aS 
BOs eee tera arate aicin as cicie sale le Selclciee nie/wieis.o ela cigie's II., 102 
SS RGH ermB Cee rasta css oiscalora elo warerolelornie'ols S)s\lote,Sia.cie II., 184 
BRGY EISCTETE DS 0025] ascienet siclayors.w overotereroac ToS e7 FE: 26, 27, 30, 35 
eats for’ OMice wies3 2) sco neeses sass sucess ae 121 et seq., 124 
PhOMas | GOVELNOE = \ie0-1< <1 01s ele siinieine E: 105, 204 et seq. 
AM orsya em ECG ARC aia welaleaieierm le sinvarersialeinisinislevsisisicie. <1 =.<\ TI., 284 
‘Fhomson; (Charles, :.222.5.0.-0+6. T., 169 ; IT., 33, 35, 105, 166 
Rew TSeU Gel GSED IS 2 alerere ict sictaic.ceeis elle ee avs sigs cic eae! I1., 189 
Townsend, INV ashiin bonis 2). cscs Poere ete Sistcisole'sinjae.=ie TI., 284 
Treaties, Indian eso aisasce T.,152, 160, 180 ; I1., 28 et seq., 38 
Treaty, Penn’s Pteal a aoreiatsiaicniciavewincie cee erat slelareias ee I., 152, 160 
ViertexsELODELES sc Nase site saisivicinmSeilelosas esr rm, 71 et seq. 
Wingarivin 1s Gis ies Gade eA an SERRE GS Sane SAefampce Tf., 145, 151 
WiialkinesPmrchase "2. .c2csese veces secseswase I., 170 et seq. 
Nia eC OlAg Use ras eta ais etic Nee oiseinne cra evele II., 217 
Metbrra FLODeED Ns \0/-1-'<'5 Jo- sis ath ei siaes cies esis II., 267 et seq. 
War Aganst Indians, 1756................. I., 178, 220, 247 
War, Quaker Views on....... T., 2, 14, 184, 189, 201, 208, 210 
WiarvPaxes. 2226.52 Sks ses T., 194 et seq., 200, 204, 216, 247 
Washington, George .............. I., 167, 170, 171, 220, 222 
MViayne WAM CHONG) sicfc accede teases oo sa cenie miele inte oie TH ee fy | 
Wietherills Samuels tse are cee s cla <te'dire ude oicuiaec TI., 54, 209 
Whites Jostal: S55. s ctor wigats ction eames II., 278 et seq. 
Pisons. Christopher: to. wa sa:csce a ceeeaementtee vcmeres I., 254 
Wistar: Dir Caspar: 22 )4.:: <\s <2 ssisis's sae Seesiewia IT., 282 et seq. 
Mricheraleg cere ke ciacecs ceva saeco oeeec ees L., 39 
Woodi Drs George Bir a'ss 22 vc ysa case see lee ese c's IT., 282 
\VAUGTRTLTT os CREE ack cP Mee mime ta Okt «EH Sane I., 12 


Yearly Meeting Epistles, etc. ..I., 41, 143, 144 ; II., 57, 
115, 129, 138, 163, 173, 180, 184, 201, 234, 236, 245 


DATE DUE 


DEMCO 38-297 


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Duke University Libraries 


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